Fire in the Leaves, Fire in the Mountains

“This is a very beautiful palace you two have here,” Fen-ka Shal remarked as he looked at the beautiful stained-glass windows in the throne room. “It has a very…comfortable feel to it.  I can see why your people love you as much as they do, given how much time you spend tending to their needs.”  The two alicorns had entered the Royal Palace the day after, as Fen-ka Shal had recovered enough of his health during the previous night and day to visit the palace of his hosts.  Celestia walked alongside him, looking bashfully up at him while listening to him talk.  The servants and nobles in the palace gawked at the newcomer, and whispered quietly to each other at seeing what had to be foreign royalty visiting.  Celestia smiled, and looked at the window showing the Elements defeating Nightmare Moon.  “Yes, we’ve had a long tradition of making time for personal appeals from anyone in the kingdom, regardless of where they’re from.  I tend to make more time for my people outside of Canterlot, though.” She stifled a giggle, and the red alicorn looked down at her quizzically. “You take time for all of them, regardless of where they’re from? Even the poor, the farmers, and the slaves?”

Celestia snapped out of her light mood immediately, remembering how significant the cultural divide between their ancient kingdoms was. “Equestria has never, and will never practice slavery.  Every one of our ponies comes to know their place in life through their mark, and because we have not had a war in…a thousand years exactly,” She winced as she remembered Luna. “There has been almost no crime, a very high standard of living for all ponies, and what anarchists do crop up are immediately rooted out by the local populace.  Though we do rule with the right to decree what we please, we long ago made a decree that we would never take advantage of the livelihood of other ponies for our own ends, or on our own whims.”  Fen-ka Shal blinked in genuine surprise, and looked past Celestia to see one of the Palace servants working happily away at cleaning the floors.  Smiling, he turned back to the Princesses and said with a joking tone, “I hope your food is as wonderful as the company you keep, then.”

Applejack was busy.  Applebucking had just finished up, and she had taking time away from her friends for a long while to take care of the business of filling orders for apples, brokering new deals with potential clients to supply apples to, and as always, giving Sugar Cube Corner its usual discount.  Though she didn’t spend much time with pinkie pie as exclusively as she did with Rainbow Dash, she did enjoy the hyperactive pink mare’s wonderful parties, especially after a long day’s work.  She smiled absentmindedly at the thought of the last party pinkie had thrown for all of them, when she felt a shiver go down her spine.  Though normally not the superstitious sort, Applejack had a healthy respect for the unknown, and for gut feelings, as indirect as they might be compared to the Pinke Sense.  She looked in the direction of the Everfree forest, and saw a number of smaller animals fleeing from the brush, scattering out and running for the hills, as it were.  Puzzled over the new development, she thought to herself, Ah definitely need to visit Fluttershy ‘bout them critters when ah have the time today.  Don’t seem right or natural them woodland folk would just get up and high tail it outta their homes like that. Don’t bode well in the least… She shook her head, banishing the uneasy feeling, and landed a solid kick on an apple tree that brought down with a yelp a familiar rainbow-maned Pegasus who’d been dozing the entire day up until now.

Twilight awoke with a yawn, and yelped in pain upon rolling over.  Instead of the fluffy pillow she’d been expecting, a hard rock had painfully bumped up against her horn, bringing her to full attention of her surroundings.  Luna still sleeping beside her, and was snoring rather loudly, much to Twilight’s amusement.  The dark blue alicorn was rolled over on her back, and had her tongue hanging out in a manner that definitely didn’t suit royalty.  The snoring subsided for a bit, and Twilight watched with open amazement and embarrassment as Luna giggled and begun to talk in her sleep. “Oh Celly, you shouldn’t have! I’m perfectly capable of asking someone for a date, you know.  He must be so confused, a farm pony like that…Why don’t you-“ as much as Twilight was curious about who the moon princess was dreaming about, her embarrassment at listening into such a personal fantasy made her reach over, and gently nudge the princess awake.  “Oh Celly stop you-Whathuhwhere??!...” Luna blinked, and kicked suddenly in a panic, looking around where she was.  When she saw Twilight looking at her, she blushed heavily, and turned away from the now laughing purple unicorn.

“Oh Luna, I never knew you were such a weird sleeper; for the Princess of the Night, you sure-ohoh wow!” Twilight was rolling with laughter, and even though it looked like she was trying to contain herself to bring back some manner of decorum, it had failed miserably.  Luna, now composed, looked off in the distance towards their destination with a deep curiosity of what lay in store for them.  Misty foothills stood before barely visible mountains, and beyond that lay both the direction of the phenomenon, and Fen-ka Shal’s fallen kingdom.  She had no idea what to expect, since even though Luna had taken through a very long-distance teleport, they were still within the very large borders of equestria, and not many people including herself had ventured out into the unknown.

“Princess?” Luna came back from her thoughts, and looked back to the smiling unicorn her sister so adored.  Though she had her sister’s love, and had been freed by the bonds of Nightmare Moon, she still felt a small twinge of jealousy at how…close this little mare was to her sister.  She immediately put it away into the corner of her mind when she kept dark thoughts, and smiled. “Princess…what are we going to do for breakfa-erm, for lunch?” The worried unicorn looked around at the unfamiliar forest around them, not seeing much in the way of immediate nourishment.  Luna suppressed a giggle, and after focusing power into her horn for a brief second, a platter of delicious, syrupy waffles for each of them, and some apple juice in a silver goblet with sapphires adorned on it appeared before each of them.  “…WOW I gotta learn that one!” Twilight levitated the fork and knife that Luna had brought along, and dug greedily into the delicious waffles, almost choking on a large piece.  “Well, if you MUST know, I teleported the silverware, plates, and goblets from the castle; made the waffles by properly combining them en-route, and the apple juice is more of a cider, since it’s just SO much easier to scramble apples mid-transit into a drink…” Twilight gagged and spat out some apple seeds, giving the Moon Princess a look halfway between a glare, and child-like wonderment.  They held their gaze for a moment, before bursting out laughing at each other.

Spike yawned loudly, and stretched out in his basket before rolling loudly.  Suddenly, he jumped up out of bed, and ran to the kitchen. “Oh no I overslept! Twilight will be furious with me now that I-” The dragon stopped short in the kitchen, and realized something was off.  Everything was in the same place it was last night, which meant Twilight hadn’t woken up yet.  He tottered up the stairs, and saw an empty bed, with the window open.  Scratching his head, he noticed a small note on her pillow.

Spike, something big came up that I have to investigate.  Might not be back for awhile, gone with Princess Luna.  You’re in charge until I get back.

Spike continued to be confused for a few seconds over contemplating what could possibly have gotten Twilight out of bed in the middle of the night, but immediately swelled with pride as he realized that he had not only the entire library to himself, but that Twilight hadn’t assigned him any chores to do while she was gone.  He marched downstairs, and after getting a fancy hat and a few choice gems he’d been saving for awhile, marched out the door to Carousel Boutique, determined to spend the whole day with the most beautiful unicorn in the world…

Celestia looked up from her lunch nervously.  Fen-ka Shal had been eating the food very slowly, and all the while looking off into the distance somewhere.  She was terribly worried that he was bored, or that he didn’t like the food prepared.

“Is the food to your liking?” She asked light-heartedly, trying not to worry about the answer.

“Oh yes, it’s something I’ve never really tasted before.  I stopped eating good food after Velae left, and considering that I’m the one who cooks for her and my brother, I probably let it go for awhile.  It’s probably why he went out to eat so often…”

Celestia blinked.

“You cook your own food?” She asked in amazement.

“But of course.  I make everything; magic, music, plays, plants, machines, toys.  I spend most of my time tinkering with things, including architecture for new building projects.”

Celestia blinked again.

“You said you build…toys and machines? What kind of things do you make?”

Fen-ka Shal smiled, and looked up, thinking briefly.

“Well, there’s one in particular I think you might enjoy.  It’s a sailing ship, but it uses special crystalline fabrics imbued with a fairly powerful set of spells.  The sails transfer energy from the sun down the masts, and beneath the decks, there are large focusing crystals that transfer that energy into telekinesis energy, which guides the ship in the direction the captain dictates with his or her mind.  I’d been long fascinated with getting flightless ponies into the air, as you might have remembered from seeing the memories of my brother, but something less…permanent was in order with the unicorns of my court.”

Celestia paused as she listened in rapt attention to the wonderful device he was describing.  A ship that sailed on the light of her sun…she could not imagine a more wonderful vessel to carry her ponies around on the skies; it seemed a much better alternative to pegusi carting around grounded ponies in chariots, and it running on the sun…the thought sent shivers of joy through her.

“After the war started, we found that we could augment unicorn’s power with the same energy from the sun.  Massive sails poured power into specially trained unicorn mages that flew off to battle the dragons, and we could easily defend against their attacks by not only redirecting their fire, but also using an Absorption spell to fuel their magic.  Eventually, I was able to design massive sky-dreadnaughts, which used permanent enchantments to stay aloft, and focused all the energy of the sun towards focused beam lasers, which used all the energy from the sun directed towards-” He stopped abruptly.  Celestia was staring at him with an expression of shocked confusion, and sadness.  She was crying openly.

“Why…did you have to kill them?  Was there anything that…” She trailed off, as she looked lost in her own sadness and confusion.

“They attacked us.  They had grown very numerous, and they had no room left outside of our territory to expand to, and wealth to hoard.  The attacked suddenly from the north slope, and burned dozens of homes, incinerating many of my children before we realized what was happening.  We had never been at war.  We had been secluded far off into the mountains to the north, in a valley unreachable by any pony from the outside.  When I came to the site of the attack…I saw children.  They were on fire, and running out of a house.  I stepped forward to snuff out the flames, but…they died.  Right in front of me.”

Celestia noticed her attention and thoughts melding with the conversation, as Fen-ka Shal slowly slipped into the High Speech.

“I looked at them for a long time.  I had never seen anypony murdered before by a dragon.  I had seen plenty of unfortunate accidents, and I have seen the old pass on.  But I had never, in my long, long life, seen one of my children murdered by those vile lizards.” Celestia’s vision shifted to the white city, and the many homes on the outskirts.  There, she saw the charred corpses of dozens, if not hundreds of ponies lying around.  She saw a trembling red leg,  adorned with silver crowns, hesitantly touch the body of…what had to be a dead filly.  It crumbled into ash beneath his touch, and hear a loud gasp escape his mouth.  Her vision blurred slightly as he began to cry, and off in the distance she heard a roar from a dragon.  He looked up, and saw a massive black dragon winding about in the sky, torching the houses.  He looked past it to see a cloud of them, all further off and flying towards his city.  Her vision grew red around the edges, and trembled in a terrifying rage.  A roar so vast and frightening that frightened Celestia to panic came from Fen-ka Shal, and she watched, now beside him, as he scratched his hoof on the cobblestones, and aimed his horn at the sky towards the dragon that was still raining death and destruction upon the homes surrounding them.

A single, bright point of white light appeared on top of his horn.  With a high-pitched shrieking sound like hooves on a chalkboard, a powerful, thin beam of light burst forth from his horn, and neatly cleaved the dragon in two.  Fen-ka Shal flapped his wings, and soared into the sky; facing the dragons that dared attack his home.  With a roar, multiple beams of white light poured forth from his horn into the fray, and with horror Celestia watched dragons…and parts of them…fall out of the sky like leaves from a waning autumn tree.  The lights danced between the now-scattered cluster of attacking dragons, and cut them to bits with a surgical precision that was terrible beyond any sense of horror she had felt.  She watched sickened, as the last of the dragons was diced up, and its head flopped down noisily on the ground.  Fen-ka Shal walked up to it, looking it in the eye, with a look of rage and disgust in his eyes that defied all description, all comprehension.  He picked it up with his telekinesis, staring at its dead eyes, face to face.

“They will all die.  Every last one of them.”

The vision abruptly ended, and Celestia promptly vomited all the food that she had consumed onto the floor.  After stumbling to her feet, she looked at the red alicorn, who had his head turned away, and his eyes closed.

“…I am sorry.” He said simply.

Celestia wiped the vomit off the side of her mouth, and gave him a venomous look, which softened into a stony expression.

“I will not judge you, for it is certainly not my place to do so, especially after what you witnessed.”  Her face fell into a sad reverie. “I’m not sure if I would’ve reacted any differently if I had witnessed something similar. I am…very close to my ponies, especially my beloved student. But your…wrath…I’m not sure what to make of…”

He looked back at her, and up into her eyes. “I have been at war with them for a long time.  Longer than you have been alive, and so long I had lost the years to the passage of time.  I hate them.  They may think and speak, they may have souls, and they may love and cherish life and the simple things as we all do, but I hate them.  I hate them so much that I want to see every.  Last.  One. Dead.”

Celestia walked up to him, with a confused expression on her face.

“How could you hate an entire race for the actions of a few?  Is every dragon so bad that they have to have their lives ended because of your wrath?” She asked him, bearing a concerned look.

“Yes.”  He  deadpanned, earning a shocked expression from Celesia.

“They killed so many of us.  And he…He took Velae from me.”

Celestia stared, wide-eyed at this admission, listening without anything else in the whole of her existence aware to her.

“Azjhaarus.  She went out to face him alone in an attempt to end the war.  She was so powerful, and so skilled in…ending things.  The void, oblivion, all these were things that constituted my Velae, and with everything that I made, she understood it, and found a way to make it better through its ending, and its changing.”  Celestia sat down next to him.  She stared into his distant, golden eyes, and watched as a single, glowing green tear escaped from his eye.  A golden tear fell from hers as his voice cracked, and he held his eyes shut to keep the torrent of grief within him at bay.

“She was Death, as far as we all saw her, and Oblivion as surely as it could be personified.  We could think of nopony better to send to him to vanquish him, but…she never came back.  I called out to her, sought her out high and low, far and wide.  She was gone.  I couldn’t sense her anywhere.  Azjhaarus did not say that he killed her, but he says nothing unless directly addressed.  I lost myself to my grief, while my brother ran the kingdom in my stead.”

Celestia now had her wing over him, and looked at him with love and pity for this king that had come to her only so recently.  She had loved, yes.  She had raised families, watched her husbands grow old and die, and kept her sister's children close to her over the long, long millennia as the nobility.  Blueblood himself was a noble, although his comical arrogance did not endear him as family to her.  They lived a fair bit longer than most unicorns, but their mortality all caught up with them in the end.  They all passed on, and Celestia had long since hardened herself to grief, and assured herself that they would be happier at peace, and not having to worry about the future any more.

But to have…been truly married to someone, to have spent…an eternity with them, and never stopped loving them…it was inconceivable that he would be anything but completely devastated over losing his only love in life, his mate.  Granted, he did have Liira with him, and that probably was a powerful emotional support for him, but…to have spent an eternity with someone…and then to just lose them like that…

Celestia  encircled him in her wings in a hug, which he returned.  “She said her love was forever…but she’s gone.”  He looked up to her with a hollow expression in his eyes.

“Her love is forever because it is with you.  It is with all those who have known her love, and will last as long as they live to keep her memory alive.”  He sighed deeply, and buried his head in her long, flowing mane, and her head upon the base of his crown, behind his horn.  She breathed in his scent deeply, and became lost in the comfortable smells of his timelessness, and smiled comfortably.

Suddenly the door opened abruptly, and a bloodied guard stood panting in the entryway.  Celestia immediately broke her embrace from the red alicorn, and blushing angrily, stated vehemently, “Report.”

The battered Pegasus looked up at her, and said the four words she had always dreaded hearing.

“We are under attack.”

A shadow crept through the gardens, wilting flowers, and turning leaves dead and grey, as they littered the ground in its passing.  A magenta light burned through the ebon depths of the shadow, and reached out to the guards that were quaking in fear before it.  The guards’ eyes went blank, and they abruptly collapsed as their life left them, and began to shrivel into ash and bones, as the darkness passed beside them.

Reaching a clearing in the enchanted maze, the shadow’s maw split wide into a grin whose dark depths held a malice and thirst that split the very fabric of reality around it into void, and left a black scar in the air behind it.  A statue of a curious chimera stood on a pedestal, with a strange expression of surprise and terror on its face.  A crack appeared on its surface.

By any other name, the dark may abide,

But through His name all light be tossed aside

He is the Anathema, the Dark King

He is Emptiness, the Fearful Thing

Out of the Void he comes to us,

Terror, death, and fear follow him thus

No people he may call home,

Forever the darkness he must roam

Across time, across space

Across the endless void they chase

He is the hunted, the banished

The one from whom souls become famished

In the arc of Oblivion, his dark reign

Begets the end of all, innocence dare not feign

For from the Void, he comes for us

Nothing dead, you will trust

In the stillness, he is there

No living thing can prepare

He is Luvaeis, he is not Divine.

He is the darkness behind all time.