A Dance With The Devil

Prologue

Shrapnels of broken wood and splinters scattered the floor of oak, ready to bite into anypony’s skin dare they near. Across his foreleg were crimson trails, blood streaming from many cuts. He hastily plucked them one by one, flinching and seething every time he did. It hurt when he’d punch it, but he needed the relief, an escape, in a way, a short lived one. Before long, they were on the floor to be with the others. He tried to move, but it was painful, a stagger his walk was.

How long had he been in this state of restlessness? Twenty-two hours past with a sign of rest none, with a mane of a madmare, a day and night whole of muttering to himself, he spent alone in his dank room, the only soul in here. Notwithstanding the fatigue overwhelming the stallion, though, he stayed awake in paranoia, his body a disgrace to what it had been once, one of a stately man, tall and proud and wise. He scratched his head with the back of his hoof.

The thought haunted him: it was everywhere, zoning in on him but never brave enough for a touch, staring at him from all directions. In the ceiling, walls, floor, and windows they watched and witnessed as the stallion slipped into insanity, and he paced around the room madly, trying to conquer them straight between the eyes for several seconds long to no avail.

“T—Thou know what will happen,” he said to himself, rolling them off the tip of his tongue. The stallion shook his head. “Y—you are . . . insane . . .” He slammed himself against the wall. “You’re insane!”

He reached his desk, grabbing a paper and quill, writing as fast as he could. He took out an envelope and cramped the thing in there, salivating and using it as a seal. The stallion snaked it through a gap under his door, and once it had been thought of and done, he jumped up and laughed. He laughed a laugh hysterical. It was a laugh of a pony who had seen everything.

“I am . . . free,” he declared. The stallion chuckled, smiling to himself smally with a trace of peace in it, his eyes glittering under the moonlight. For the first time in what felt like a hundred years, he felt free, and he shall be soon; to wait was the only thing he needed to do.

In a short while . . . three knocks he heard. That was all that it took, and he calmly grinned at the door. “It is open.”

Her eyes were red. So incredibly red with a peaceful insanity. He almost lost himself to her gaze; there was something so odd about it, that expression, those lips, the mien. The stallion was scared not, no. He stared at her, right at her, the blood that drenched on her coat. She said not a word. She did not move. She stared back.

“Are you here to take me away?” he asked of her. Not a reply, a stare so piercing only. “I thought so. You have been waiting outside my door; you think I know not of it?” He gave this moment a silence when she did not answer. “Have you ever thought of what happened to them?” he inquired with a frown. “What you did to them? What you have done?” Then came the air’s song, which was hollow of a meaning. “It was something wrong, I need to remind you. What you did was wrong.

“Ofttimes we tend to do the wrong things for the right reason. Is that it? Were you doing this all to protect yourself? To protect the land of Equestria and everywhere else beyond what could be known?” She tilted her head curiously.

“Are you going to kill me because of what I know about you? No need to answer that. You do. You are going to kill me so nopony could ever find out what you did, of who you are.” The air grew a tad louder in the darkness of night, chanting a deep bellow, rising up in pitch and fading away slowly. She raised her chin.

“I am going to kill thee, yes,” she maintained, a voice of a royal and echoey, yet with the slightest tinge of youth. “But I ought to kill thee with dignity. How wouldst thou wish to die?”

He had been thinking about it these past hours. “I want to die with you hearing my last words, then strangle me until I take my last breath.

“I have always wanted to fly when I was a foal, and I always watched the pegasi dance through the air like a ballerina. That is the thing with me—I cannot be happy with what I have. And so as I aged I accepted it, the fact that I cannot do what I always wanted to do. I know I cannot fly, but I can do other things, and presently I moved on. Though before I did, I was disheartened to achieve my dreams, sad too. But there was nothing I could do. I knew that. I shrugged it off as a childish wish that could never be true. You look around you and you will see ponies that have dreams that have been crushed. And that is when I realised that this world was made not for those who get everything they want. Everypony wants something, and when they get it, they always want something else: that is what happens if they do. Lust could never be satisfied, I say, but I want your sweet embrace. Your cold embrace. I want you to suck the life from me, from this twisted mess we call a world. The horizon neareth me, you know, so you might as well do it. It is something I cannot regret, and I will not want anything else.”

And so she launched herself forward in the speed of light, crunching her hooves against his neck, pinning him against the wall. He felt the wall break behind him, along with his bones. Her coat was as cold as ice, crawling deep to his insides, and with his larynx crushed and working no more, he managed a smile weak and light.