Sojourner Sparkle

The bitter, cold wind blew across the tundra of the South, stealing away warmth and life.

Rolling plains, otherwise flat and craggily, lain empty. Devoid of anything save sparse brush, and the wind. The air down south choked with thinness, with almost no moisture to be found. Few even knew of this place, and whatever maps contained this area never bothered to give it a name. It encompassed the southernmost point in the world. Nobody would idly choose to suffer the cold or the emptiness.

Twilight Sparkle was anything but idle, however. The tall, weary alicorn woke from a fitful sleep, and slowly rose from her required stupor. The camp that she set the night before could be described as minimal. It was hardly a camp at all, but a resting place that Twilight set aside for her use in the night prior. A wide pit had been dug, and ashes were what remained of yesterday’s fire. Twilight regarded that ash fondly, for it provided warmth to her weary frame the night before. The stars watched to the alicorn’s great journey, as well as the sun of the day. They both mourned for the lone wanderer. Before long, her facial features hardened.

She, with a twitch in her eye, Twilight smelled herself and realized that she was filthy with exertion. A select friend of hers would have a hissy fit were she to discover Twilight’s current condition, she thought fondly.

Twilight then considered that her friend would likely already be in protest of her current actions, but Twilight had made her choice long ago. Stretching up, she banished the pile of ashes with a gust of summoned wind. She saw the ash as it flew, and she remembered the smell. It was too familiar to Twilight. It reminded her of green hills being consumed by starving fire, and Twilight went back, for a moment, to a city of homes at war. She felt the armor on her frame grow heavy. Her breath deepened, and then she forced herself into the present.

She took slow strides through the wastes. The armor she wore carried many dents and scratches, but it still protected Twilight’s body very well. It clinked and clanked with every step, and her armored boots crunched and squashed whatever managed to grow here, which wasn’t much. Moss and various green stains on the landscape numbered among the only witnesses to the lonely mare’s march. Her lavender coat bore many scars, and her mane and tail were matted and messy from lack of care and the stress of a long journey. Her tall, spiraling horn bore faint marks of scorches from extreme magical exertion. Finally, her wings, strong as they were, only were cared for enough that she would be able to fly and fight.

She was not here for pleasure, or for research purposes. The gray, tattered cloak she wore over her armor concealed edged and blunt weapons, long worn and well-used, but well cared for. Over the cloak, Twilight bore a rounded metal shield of blue and silver, an heirloom of an event long gone. The passing of the former bearer of the shield wore heavily on Twilight’s mind. It and many other reasons were why she was here, in the most inhospitable point of the world.

No mortal or otherwise on the face of Enov would dream of colonizing this place, and no attempt had been made to even explore this far-away place. Twilight marched towards the only other reason why that never was. The Tower.

Twilight suspected that it marked the absolute South Pole, or near close to it. Twilight was well aware of the many names that the Tower possessed like a demon. Obsidian. Death. Despair. Hell. It really mattered not to Twilight at this stage. Perhaps the denizens of the Tower had a name for it. Perhaps they called it “The Tower of the Master”, or simply “Our Tower”. Cracking a grin at this thought, Twilight regarded the Tower more closely.

It was made from obsidian-colored brick, and the architecture glowered with a dark and looming presence. If the Tower didn’t look abandoned, it would be a formidable fortress. Indeed, its location and the extreme remoteness would require a siege party to be supremely well-prepared in rations and other traveling needs. Smaller turrets hung off the Tower itself, as well as the walls surrounding the Tower itself. It was an intimidating sight, but Twilight knew that the Tower itself only held the truly fearful things.

As Twilight got closer, she bore witness to the one siege that the Tower would ever be under and was currently losing. In places on the walls and on the battlements, dark bricks had fallen out, and the light of the day failed to gain much entrance into those breaches. She even saw the poor state of the once-formidable gate as it rested, having fallen off its rusted hinges on the barren soil outside. Stopping for a moment, she looked over the evil structure. The attack of time ever continued, and it showed in the depleted state of the former fortress. No enemy who would have made the journey here would be repelled from those shoddy walls and the collapsed gates would not bar any entry at all.

Taking a long breath through her snout, Twilight lifted the hood from her face. After having inspected the Tower’s outer walls and the Tower itself, she turned her attention to the top of the Tower. It was surrounded by battlements of obsidian spikes, and the keep of the stronghold was situated within these spikes. It almost looked like a rounded house, albeit with dark paneling and black roofing.

Rolling her shoulders, Twilight stepped from the soft dirt of the outside world... and into the unknown darkness of the Tower itself.

Miscellaneous discarded remnants of interior stood before Twilight in the darkened room, as well as the rusted remains of jagged weapons and coarse armor. Recognizing the make and style of these weapons, Twilight drew her longsword. The edge of her weapon shone hard, and the craftsmanship thereof was excellent. The silvery surface of the weapon promised a swift end to any who opposed Twilight. The decorations were an afterthought, but Twilight regarded these engravings as works of beauty, made by a master of his craft. That, as well as the quality of the weapon itself, causing Twilight to have long considered this blade one of the finest to have ever been made.

As she drew her sword to rest in the air by her side, Twilight cast a spell to dispel any concealing darkness within the entranceway to the Tower. Having done so, Twilight was surprised when all that greeted her were more dark bricks and a few doors. One to the left, one to the right, and one that led straight ahead to the Tower stairway. Twilight considered her surroundings for a while and wondered if it was worthwhile to explore the walls surrounding the Tower, as opposed to just rushing to her destination up the steps.

After a moment of deliberation, Twilight saw the rotted state of everything inside the room she occupied and determined that there would be nothing of value to her here in the walls of the Tower. No gold to pilfer, and no tomes to take. No food to eat, nor water to drink. The only thing she could take was the scraps of metal that now lay on the floor, and they were hardly worth scavenging.

Listening intently, Twilight swiveled her ears to listen for any sound that came from within the Tower, or the walls. After a minute or two of this waiting, Twilight decided that the only course of action to take now was to proceed. Sheathing her sword, and letting the cloak conceal her weapon once more, the Alicorn of Friendship proceeded.

Having reached the stairwell, Twilight’s source of light shone a pale purple light on all that she saw. Looking down, she saw the spiraling staircase going ever down, down, and down. It seemed to go on forever, but she saw a pale red light at the end of the stairwell. She would deal with that later. Twilight tilted her head upward, and she saw that the stairs also went up, up, and up.

Breathing in through her nose, and letting it out through her mouth, Twilight unfurled her sore wings. It was an ascent of a simple affair. The only other sources of light there to be found in the stairway of the Tower were slotted windows placed periodically throughout the levels of the Tower. These firing slots allowed the dim light of the far south to filter in, and light up the dark place with a grim mood and scenery. The air itself seemed to float in place with gray ash flakes lazily moving to and fro. Having taken to the air, Twilight’s ascent did not take very long.

At the extreme edge of the tower, the entrance to the top loomed. More light came through, but the light itself seemed... warped. The sky itself seemed to darken around the summit of the Tower as if the Sun’s light itself twisted and altered as it shined here. The warmth was stolen away, and the golden rays became... darker, somehow. As Twilight landed to finish her ascent, she gulped in a bit of nervousness. Even after all she had been through, she never could quite ignore the fear that gripped her heart completely.

Coming up on the keep of the Tower, Twilight saw that the disrepair of the tower extended to this portion of the structure, too. Many holes in the roof and the walls of the keep were present, and she had no doubt that time would bring it down with the constant barrage of entropy and the invasions of erosion. However, Twilight’s intended to bring all of it down. Coming up on the empty doorway of the Tower, Twilight remarked that the steel door that kept the keep safe stood in a similar state of repair as the gate to the Tower; namely, that it fell down and laid like a corpse, beyond all repair. Entering the keep was a simple affair. The click of the armored boots Twilight wore on the stone was supplanted briefly for the clang of the shoes on the door, until she stepped off it and looked within. The structure was void of any of all accouterments, as well as any and all interior design and walls, save one; the throne of the Master of the Tower.

The reek of evil lingered here. Looking at the stone throne, Twilight saw the Master of the Tower. It was a wretched creature. A facsimile of a more familiar, bipedal race. Dark energies seized this individual and warped it beyond any and all recognition to its friends and family if it ever had them. Twilight saw the hunched individual and pondered for a moment. Did this individual once have a name? Did it love? Did it hate? Did it know what happened to the rest of its kind, and did it care? What did it feel, now that it fell into darkness? As she pondered, she looked the creature itself.

Rags and armor adorned the creature. The coverings were perhaps once whole, the culmination of hours and hours of work and labor, by the hands and even claws of the most skilled laborers the Master of the Tower corralled to its disposal. The dark robe, and the black steel of the Master’s armor and clothing had rotted and rusted now. Hunched were the creature’s shoulders, as well as its chest as if bourne with a heavy burned. The only thing that remained whole, Twilight realized with a start, was the creature’s weapon. The black steel of the dark bastard sword had not withered with the Tower and the Master. The relic darkly glittered, a rival to any blade that mortals and demons could make. Finally, the head of the creature hung limp, and the long, smooth hair that capped the head was a wrinkled white, thin, and withered. Hooked, pointed ears extended past the skull of the Master, and the points curved upwards, in a display that made the ears themselves resemble curved horns. Dust hung heavy in the air.

However, the depleted state of the Master of the Tower made Twilight wonder if perhaps the Master died, and that her task was all the easier. As soon as the thought had occurred to her, however, the creature stirred. Slowly, the head, having looked to be the head of a dead creature, pulled itself up with the creaking of a stiff corpse, and the hooked ears now towered above its head for the first time in what must have been an age. The obsidian crown of the Master of the Tower stood tall, round and pointed. The craftsmanship of the crown was made of the same black steel that the Master’s sword comprised made of, and it seemed to join the sword in the unyielding defense against the ravages of time.

After the Master finally erected its head above its shoulders, Twilight could see the inky-black eyes of the beast. She had no doubt now that she was in for a bitter struggle against this monster, and that it would tax her greatly. Without irises, the eyes of the Master focused on Twilight, and gray, cracked lips peeled back, revealing rotted and pointed teeth that seemed to forever sneer, and the Master asked something, in the voice of the damned and the dead.

“Why are you here?” it croaked. The sound reverberated off the walls of the keep, and the dark inflections of the tone that the Master of the Tower adopted told Twilight that it there was no intention of yielding, nor did it wish to give up the powers that the Darkness granted it, even if the darkness had taken the goodness from him and replaced it with a void-like hunger for carnage, conquest, and destruction. Twilight saw the same thing from its ilk and fully intended to repay this hunger with the destruction of this final Dark Eldaur.

Twilight turned to the side, displaying her armor, which was decorated with her cutie mark. It was a violet star, surrounded by smaller, white stars. The Master of the Tower did not seem to recognize it, but Twilight did not require it to. She simply stated, “To draw the curtains on this war, once and for all.”

After a moment of thought, the Master let out an “Ah.” After another moment, it said, “So, we have lost?” Other than the head, which tilted slightly, the Master gripped the rugged hilt of his dark sword tighter, and otherwise remained motionless, still as a corpse. Seeing a Dark Eldaur in this state unnerved Twilight, but she pressed on. Finally, the Master said, “So, all my kin have passed from this world, trying to fight you and your kin?”

Twilight, instead of responding verbally, simply nodded her head. Her horn glowed, and her sword was again retrieved from the scabbard it sat in. The Master finally stirred, and it’s rotted form slowly raised itself from the stone throne it had sat on for many millennia. The creaking of bones and the stretching of atrophied muscles echoed off the tower’s walls, and the inky eyes of the Master still focused solely on Twilight and her drawn weapon. Still, the Master had not raised its own weapon against her. What was it playing at? The stiff jaw of the Master worked slowly as it muttered darkly,

“You do know that we are no longer a threat to your world, then? You won the war. We are the remnants who retreated from the War long ago, to wait for the dust to claim us. The light does not waver, but we did. Your armies did not falter, but ours did. You won. We lost. Why attack?”

Twilight regarded the Master icily, with a gaze that was heavy with hatred, and a fire of fury was lit in her expressive eyes. After taking in a deep breath from her mouth, she simply replied, “Because there are some who simply need to be destroyed.”

“Oh, but why is that?”, bargained the Master. “Surely, after we had paid for our own transgressions with the blood of our kin, and the almost total destruction of our race, that you would show leniency and spare us? What if we...”

Twilight saw the breath of the evening chill slowly enter the Master, with a wheeze that belied the true power of the Dark Eldaur. He finally stated, “What if we wanted to be friends?”

Twilight’s breath hitched, and her brain paused. Could there really be peace between her people and the Dark Eldaur? There may yet be a reason to spare the monsters, and reason still to try to redeem them, as she did in the past. Besides that, she needed to demonstrate to the world and to herself that she was indeed the Princess of Friendship. To do that, she would have to befriend the Armies of Darkness. However... all at once, Twilight’s eyes hardened.

Shaking her head, she declined with a stern growl, “Your fate was sealed when you attacked us long ago.” Twilight raised her sword in a fighting stance.

Nodding, the Master said with some sadness, “Very well. You’ll have to excuse me if I offer you a last stand. You will find me in the deepest pit of our last Kingdom of Darkness.”

Tilting its head backward, the lips of the Master peeled back completely, and black blood ran down its teeth as it roared. The roaring, Twilight thought, must have been heard for miles around, but heard by no one.

No one, other than the Thrall of the Master. As she listened, Twilight could hear the underground rousing, ready to meet her with blade and fire. Drums sounded in the deep, and the clash of iron on iron rose from the pit, along with the jeering and cheering. That was nothing less than Twilight had expected. As the Dark Eldaur got into a combat stance, it suddenly shifted. Skin stretched over bone and regained its dark color. Hair grew from the scalp of the Master’s head and darkens from a deathly clear-white to a lush dark. Holding its sword to its side, the Master teleported underground with a flash of red magical light. That was fine, Twilight reasoned. The Dark Eldaur would be the last minion of the Shadow to die. As the first of the last hunched orc of the Master of the Tower reached Twilight, her eyes glowed white with sheer magical power, and she made her final choice in the War.

Though the world had been saved, and though the Enemy lay where they fell in battle, Twilight would not rest until every last trace of the Shadow burned away.