Prologue: The Tarnished Crown
Excerpt from The Book of The Fool and The Prophet:
With a righteous light on the gleam of his helm, his eternal perfect face. Blood, the richest of wine, will shine bright, almost as if gold itself. Will of Fortune and Prosperance; those who treck upon the path of gold, find that gold oft finds them. Those who seek treasure, exquisities, splendor, need not worry for their pockets to be empty. For the selfish, gold will pathe the road towards salvation. For the selfless, to drown, drunk in wine.
- p. 106, Doshikis (Time of Gold and Wine)
. . . . .
The words always tasted foul, as if sewage in her mouth–rotted death. Words sworn in an act of edified bravado. Words of pure, although incidental malediction right before the boat set off. The mission was par for the course. For the first half of the grand journey, anyway.
Were she to have actually delivered the queen for her second marriage; her nation, Liven would unite with the forbidden island continent, Jinderen.
Askaria would have fallen and all would have kneeled.
Of course, however, due to ten simple words, it was doomed to fail. Her indictment? In a selfless act to save her queen, she'd perished against an undescribably unfathomable rift. She couldn't get a good look at it as it all but swatted her off of the galleon.
It sunk the boat, her queen, her people and Arriam herself.
She remembered, having seen little from beneath the waves, the monstrous hulking kraeken was almost as if the very sea itself. Its darkened silhouette in an abyssal sea of shadow, merely disappeared beneath the black.
Arriam closed her eyes and all but the smell of salt had disappeared.
"Failing this mission would surely plunge us into darker days..." the words meant nothing, not anymore. Words of dead men heeded well to not be spoken. She knew this, everyone on this island knew this. Useless words from corpses.
Not that she fared any better, herself being just below the level of cadaver already simply due to her lineage. Arriam chuckled wryly to herself, her feet dangled loosely over the ledge of stone. Her eyes loomed over the decayed village of what was a damned perfect replica of her old home. Liven, or more particularly, the southern quarter. The Village of Smiles.
Once, she abhorred being in this nightmare–once. Now, however, as she stared over the vacant streets below, she felt nothing but irony. This was her sanctuary—the actual haven merely several feet behind her, her back to the entrance—her safe place.
It was the only semblance of home she had left. This island ate away at everything else, aside from her flesh. The salt had that checked off the list, as with other things. The rot, she chuckled as if she'd reminded herself of her disease. The island ate away her mind, the salt on the air ate away her flesh.
Or tried to, anyway.
Her permanent, expressionless mask protected her. Her Gods protected her. The Fool and The Prophet, though false Gods in the eyes of the many, protected her. She knew this as fact; her golden face would never rot in the end.
Her Gods willed that.
So she spilled, in their names. She would forever spill, in their names. Repayment for a debt impossible to repay. She'd spilled the blood of any adversary against her rightous, splendourous path of survival. Her face continued to stare emptily at the town beneath her feet–her mind had seen far beyond her vision.
Though the time for reminiscence was short, she took one, long intake of air. Salt filled her lungs, the rotten skin beneath her mask ached. Finally, her eyes opened and she truly stared at the decay below.
Two golden irises, beneath a cage of eternal splendor, glistened with unshed tears as she stared at her ruin.
Killing her queen had been a nail in the coffin of sorts for Arriam. She'd bowed each and every time they'd fought. Her queen, her inspiration. Her last connection to home.
Arriam had saved her for second-to-last. Though she shouldn't have–her back ached with what she'd believed physical deliverance. Her next task was all the more harder.
Arriam knew she was ready. Her goal now was domination, dominion–her fucking claim over what was rightfully hers! She had spilled her share of blood, she had emptied enough of herself, in the name of her Gods. She would spill the blood of a nameless Jeepers Creepers. She clenched her fist tightly, her thoughts drifted to the nameless saltbleeder.
She would bathe in his golden black blood. Her armor would shine, she would shine and she would rejoice in the infinite youth. As is her right, as a follower of both The Fool and The Prophet. This nameless god would shower her in riches beyond compare!
Okay, maybe her ma was right. Maybe she was a tad overzealous when it came to her religion.
She nodded her head violently to rid the thoughts of blank faces and memories that weren't even hers. The metal, clung tightly to her face, didn't tug a muscle. She had to forget about her mother. Her father. Her–her. Edward.
The despondent, little thief.
Edward never found it funny when Arriam always called her Edward. The thief had constant protests. Arriam found it absolutely hilarious, however. She would laugh, apologize to the pickpocket, then usually revert back to calling her Edward.
Even though the thief had said her name wasn't Edward. That it was just a codename from whatever ties she had in Costrock... she'd be better off to keep her promise to Arriam.
Coastrock, remember, Coastrock.
She'd better be there... Arriam didn't remember anyone, not outside of the island. If the option were to arise, her... escape, would she be able to return to society after this? This island? She didn't know anything anymore, granted, outside of Tristini culture. Aside of it being kind of violent, aside of those two things, she couldn't recall her times away from the island.
She didn't remember if it was good or bad that her town was slightly aggressive.
Right. Well, mostly aggressive. Like, murder in the streets, the city of Liven was proof enough. The Village of Smiles was proof enough. Her queen is–was proof enough.
Coastrock would be different, and besides, Edward promised Arriam. She promised.
But did the follower of The Fool promise back?
She couldn't remember, and Arriam shook her head a second time. She turned her gaze away from the Village of Smiles. Her Village of Smiles, her southern quarter of her island. Her piece of the pie, as it was. As she turned away from the rather-unsafe balcony, her mind raced on riches and reward.
No. Her mind was set.
Her eyes shifted forward and away from the prospect of Coastrock, Edward, into what had been her home for the last... however long. She'd been cursed to die here. Forgetfulness of whatever life she'd happened to be on tended to happen. Her stomach was permanently in a state of eating itself, anxious blood coursed through her veins. The salt had ruined Arriam, her golden mask protected her.
She clutched her off hand tightly. A streak of purple cloth vanished quickly in her thick, glamorously golden, glistening gauntlets. Her plated palm stayed at her side as she fidgeted with the material.
Golden eyes scanned over each select individual she'd grown oh-so accustomed to. All of them, unlike her, stared back with imperfect faces. She had become immune to imperfections. She grinned to raise her brows, albeit despite how bitter she'd actually felt.
"Ach, Arriam!" A loud, boisterous voice shouted. A familiar voice that belonged to a just-less annoying stain on a shirt. Her eyes met the only decent imperfect being in the brick hall.
The grey-bearded bald man, who'd disturbed her peace so, grinned widely. Arwen, the sanctuary's Blacksmith, ran his gloved fingers through his scragged tuft of a beard as he waved her over, "thought ya jumped for a tic, lass! Be bad fer business if I lost me only customer," he gave a hearty chuckle. When Arriam didn't respond in kind, he lessened up on his barking tone.
His brow furrowed a little. "So, s'it over with then?" Arwen's hushed tone quieted the rest of the hall's occupants.
Mariné, the so-called leader of the Village of Smiles' little guild, listened in on her guests' conversation. Her brown locks, curled over her eyes, made easy work of hiding her line of sight. Abyssal, shadowed pits, black sunken eyes see all. A trait uncommonly found in Tristinian citizens.
Fischer, once court mage to her highness, closed his eyes as he bowed his head in honour. He needn't know the details. He felt her power diminish over the desolate village. Though a copy it was, the nightmares she'd forced upon everyone were very real. Her death silenced the screaming of children; their faces cut, etched permanent smiles. The Queen herself tugged at their cheeks slowly with each of her deathly blades.
That they were finally over, that her image was no longer being corrupted by some mad god, Fischer smiled kindly as he turned away.
Bob the green-haired guide, who stood ever so alert at his travel-post, snored quietly. How one was able to fall asleep standing, only the Fool and the Prophet knew. And they were never 'in a telling mood.'
Arriam looked down at her feet, her eyes masked how hurt she had felt as she flattened her queen's head into a bloodied, brain-eye pulp. How hurt she'd felt as she stared at her prone queen.
Okay, maybe she hadn't felt hurt at the time. That was purely just a psychotic break from having been throttled from her highness' royally sharp pain in the ass blades of pure ouchies one-~~give or take twenty~~ times too many.
She looked into Arwen's imperfect eyes. "The queen is dead," she all but mumbled. It was a dreadful, painful moment of silence.
Mariné pulled her frayed hair back, her eyes met Arriam's. Darkness met light as the two powerhouses in the community stared at each other. Mariné dipped her head a little with a low sigh. The words ushered out of her mouth shocked no one.
"Then long live the queen." Mariné took a stance, her right fist over her chest, her left behind the small of her back.
Even though her glare was pointed at Arriam, Mariné loosed a defeated sigh through her nose. She pulled from her back the tarnished coronet of the old queen, looked at it once and tossed it to the gold-hungerer
Everyone else fell to their knees as the crown glistened with torchlight. It landed in her waiting, dominant hand. Bob snorted himself awake as Arwen elbowed him in the side. Fists met with chests, and the whole of the haven shouted in unison. "Then long live the queen!"
Then Arriam cried as she gripped her other hand like a vice. A sheet of unholy scribblings tightened between whitened, strained knuckles.
She needed to do this.
They needed to convert. She had masks made for the four prominent people here. It was to protect them. She could see the rot begin to take place. In her and in them. She had to protect them, they were her subjects after all. She had asked them once, to follow The Fool down the path of gold in life. To philosophize with The Prophet in the after.
They had declined.
And they had laughed.
She would then ask one more time, tears filled her eyes as she clenched the parchment just out of view from everyone. She couldn't feel Mariné's stare. Her pitless, black orbs. "I must ask," Arriam started quietly, her eyes stared so intently at the crown in her palm. She waited for the perfect silence. Her backsack dropped from her shoulder, on to the floor.
Its contents spilled, four golden masks clanked across cement.
"Will you reconsider? What I had asked when I had first found friends in you all?" Her voice steadied, tears stopped their flow. Her empty hand went down to the hilt of her dangled hammer. "Would you if your queen protected you? If your queen's Gods became yours?"
Fischer had already accepted the fact that he might have had to abandon his creed. Upon her arrival, she'd been adamant on her religion. Not quite forced, but forced nonetheless. She'd followed her gods this far, she'd see to it they did as well.
Fischer's faith wasn't wavered in The Three. It was merely they were deceased somewhere in a crypt of dead gods. If Arriam could slay deities, especially the kind who didn't care for converters, deserters, it was only a matter of time until Arriam ascended herself. Not like it truly mattered, anymore. The Fool, The Prophet, and The Queen. He loosed a grim chuckle. While not Fischer's previous idols, was still three gods in his book.
Fischer went to grab his new, perfect face.
Arriam's eyes straightened as she took a deep, shuddered breath as she calmed her nerves. One down. "The path of gold is splendour, friends. My Gods grants us so much; protection from the salt, gold in life, forever, and wine to splurge. They will protect you, they will spoil you in riches, with splendor beyond your imagination!"
She stared at each of her compatriots. They stared back in horror at the sight. Her golden eyes glistened as if truly glowing, steaming, melted gold. She had begun to preach. "Even in death, in true death, The Prophet will bless your afterlife with golds and wines, women and men! Live, to be selfish! Anything you want is yours, just follow me along the path!"
Mariné looked aghast at the statement. Her thoughts of Arriam had begun to turn dark; the other Tristinian woman was obviously crazed.
Arriam kept hold of something in her hands, but Mariné couldn't tell. Even with her adept eyes, the woman's golden armor sheened in just the right manner. It prevented Mariné from looking almost only at that area. Coincidence, Mariné would have said what felt like years back when she'd first met the now-queen. She knew different now. Arriam was skilled, at deceipt. At murder. At following her Gods' will.
Arriam was in the middle of her usual conversion tactic.
Mariné had heard what happened at the Shivering Shore outpost. She heard tale of what Arriam had done, but she thought it was all in jest. Her stare went to Arwen for all of a moment.
Mariné just didn't believe it.
Her hand went to the handle of her blade. "Gold will rain, wine will become our air. We-" and it made just enough noise.
And Arriam had let her Gods speak through her with action. Her hammer had never went up and down so fast.
Panic reaction. Usually only happened if something startled Arriam. This was one of those times, and how she'd regretted it almost immediately.
She loomed over the back end of her concrete, her eyes scanned the now-again bloodied brick-on-a-stick. Her golden eyes were wide and her breath was heavy. She stared at her weapon with exhilaration.
And just who it'd came down upon.
Arwen's head sat messily exploded/squelched beneath the even blunter end of Arriam's weapon. In his hand was a dagger he was to use and stab her with, should her preaching become... culty.
She didn't ever mean to come off that way, it's just she always felt exuberant when she talked about her Lords' workings. Her eyes looked upwards and they caught Mariné's own gaze.
Again, darkness met light. Gold illuminated even the darkest shadows. Arriam's eyes flicked to Mariné's hands, both were clasped tightly on her, as of yet, sheathed longsword. A gift from Arriam, no less.
The tool Arriam had used, to lessen the strained relation, didn't even see the light of Arriam's golden Will. Her hammer shattered Mariné's flimsy blade on impact. Her shoulder, in the course of of the massive blunt object, popped out of place, every bone down to her right elbow shattered. She screamed and Arriam did not care. She raised her hammer back and brought it down on the proned, fragile leader.
Mariné couldn't scream again.
The blood that pooled from her imploded temples spilled almost frothily from her disserviced face, her muscle-torn mouth bubbled red as she choked on her own blood and tongue. She snorted, her black orbs bulged.
Mariné's last breath erupted from her mouth with a loud, audible pop. Red splattered but it did not shine across the gold. Arriam sighed.
Both Fischer and Bob had easily accepted the conversion. More or less, Bob didn't care–gold-greedy saltbleeder, him. She wished, she'd hoped Arwen and Mariné would have had done the same. Two faces of gold, that were perfect in every way, watched in absolute horror the event that played before them. They did nothing as Arriam clasped their holy candelabra in her bloody, damp archaic papers.
It shined, the candelabra transmuted in silence. When her hands unveiled the sanctified piece, in its place was a cold, dead, still beating heart.
It pulsed once before she crushed it in her palm. The darkened blood spilled between her fingers and she looked up at her two followers.
"It is time to kill a god." She muttered all but lifelessly. He who'd taken her, he who'd molded her into what she was.
The bastard who brought her here had forced his own undoing.
. . . . .
Scootaloo's eyes snapped open from the nightmare. Magenta careened about; her panic-filled gaze snapped around the rest of her room. She had fallen from a cliff. A very tall cliff. A very black-charred cliff.
In all actuality, in her dream, she was more or less pushed from it by an unknown assailant.
A drowned city awaited her at the bottom. While down below, in the submerged streets, was gold, 'neath the waves it had looked like the fires of Tartarus. She was scared.
Gold, while still it held a gorgeous sheen, had never looked so uninviting. Yet, she grew no closer to it. The pegasus was not falling to her death, no, she was in her disturbed bed. Scootaloo sighed almost happily. Her eyes closed as if she could still feel the air rushing through her mane.
In the back of her mind, she knew why she had feared gold of all things. Yet she couldn't ever speak the answer. No one would believe her; the end times, greed, a bipedal god had struck down Celestia with ease. Her crown fell so, so much further.
Scootaloo was not a seer, yet she clould still see. A dream that played more than once was not, itself, just a dream. Scootaloo bit her lips nervously as her eyes opened once more. She squinted through one, as if expected to wake up in the nightmare again. She was not and she nodded once.
She'd stumbled as she had gotten up from her dainty, little bed.
Today was the day, Scootaloo supposed. The Black Spire was to no longer remain a mystery; her friends and Scootaloo herself would see to it. The Cutie Mark Crusaders: Fortune Finders was their attempt for today.
The blackest tower, shrouded in the darkest area of the Everfree. She snorted, the whole idea totally wasn't the start of a damned prophecy. If only she could understand why she'd dreamt of her own demise this time around.
Totally not a frightening thought.
Typically Scootaloo would watch on in horror as they, her two best friends were the ones being murdered in some cruel way. Yet, last night was a new experience. Just not a good one. Scootaloo figured she'll just stay away from gold for a day or two.
The Black Spire, supposedly a mark of once-grander Griffon history, now sat broken. Amidst an ocean smaller than Griffonstone itself. Cheerilee had warned all of them that those who sought out the tower, sought out their own destruction.
Hopefully, all just hear-say.
The almost flightless pegasus left her home without nary a word to her parents. She needn't worry them with her doings. She needn't them for much of anything, really.
Not as if they cared. She had friends for that.
Friends she was supposed to meet before they set off.
. . . . .
Scootaloo shouldn't have thrown that compass. They were lost, herself and her friends, so very lost. The trail, while innocuous at first, quickly grew thick and dangerous.
Applebloom looked on curiously as the trio tredged down the path. Leaves and vines, roots and wood showered their apparent way. Her jaw clenched tightly as she fought back a scream when a branch touched her flank, "Scootaloo! W-why did we think this was a good idea again?" She pleaded as the other stopped for her to whine.
The orange, rust-colored pegasus rolled her eyes. "I didn't think nothing, I was wholeheartedly okay with staying at home," she'd muttered in response as she stared at her newly broken wing. The path grew denser and she was unlucky enough to have been caught up in it. The light of day shrouded from the thick unnatural wood. "I am totally not okay with keeping on this stupid trail!"
Scootaloo's shouts staggered Sweetie Belle, the youngest of the three equine friends. The white unicorn had tears welling up in her eyes, "I agree with Scoots, AB... I don't wanna be here anymore! She's already hurt. But what about us?" Her words fell on deaf ears as Applebloom harrumphed but continued forward. She stopped merely a foot ahead.
Scootaloo bumped into her friend's back-end. She looked forward, past Applebloom. Her eyes widened as she saw it.
She just wished she hadn't.
"We can't turn back now when the going's just getting good! Look!" Applebloom pointed forward with her hoof, the clearing ahead of them was all but revealed. Its entrance covered with strewn vines, a pitch black shadow loomed over the other side. "I betcha that there leads us to where we wanna go."
Sweetie Belle whimpered, her eyes ripped from the end of the road to her friend, "but what if I wanna go home?" Her hooves frozen in place, Sweetie Belle shook her head violently, "I don't wanna go any further!"
Applebloom released a breath through her nose. "Ten feet, Sweets! Ten feet is all we need to go!" She indicated with her head down the mossy path. "Ten feet and if we can't see the tower in that clearing," her eyes caught Sweetie Belle's as she went silent for a moment. Scootaloo tilted her head, otherwise she still stared forward as she listened, "then we go home, huh Scoots?" Applebloom looked up at the eldest friend, Scootaloo's purple eyes snapped from the clearing.
"Huh, right. Yeah, just," but slowly enough, her gaze returned to the shadowed path's end. "Just ten more feet." She gulped silently, her friends joined by her side. Sweetie Belle nudged at Scootaloo with her horn and the filly placed a forehoof over Sweetie's shoulder, "if not, then, yeah. We go home."
Her confidence didn't inspire much. The strange waft of salt from ahead dissolved whatever inspiration that was formed rather quickly.
As the three stepped beyond the wall of earthen veins, they were once again stopped at the sight. Behind the veil, beyond the lush green forests of the Everfree, there it sat.
From the grey beaches, across a decayed bridge, upon an ocean of black, there it was. A tower that grasped towards the sky as if a talon reaching for godhood.
The Black Spire.
And gold glistened beneath the abyssal waves.
. . . . .
"Fuckin' bastard made me chip a tooth!" I press my shoulder into my rather ripe jaw. Yep, that is definitely a broken tooth. Need to get that out. Saltbleeder, that's gonna hurt in the morning. Wouldn't have, if that sonuvabitch didn't break my perfect mask, my perfect face.
Also quite possibly my now-more imperfect jaw.
Ooh, good time to get a golden canine then!
My hands clenched their respective extensions tightly in either giddy thought or utter pain. Beneath gauntlets of resplendent gold; the imperfect, human bones they protect crack with loud, audible pops.
Godsdamn, that feels both horrible and pleasant at the same time. Feeling air on my face for the first time since... well, I can't remember–it feels almost euphoric, energizing.
I feel like I'm naked without my golden visage. The salt down here, while not as thick as say that damn salt-magickannery... alcohollery–big words are for noble queens. I'm not a...
That's right, I am a queen–I do have her crown... Yes, I do now, don't I? I am Arriam, new Queen of the Village of Smiles–saltbleeder, absolutely love the ring of that particular bell. I look at the coronet secured tightly to my waist through the corner of my eyes.
I drop my tower shield on its front as I rip the crown from its resting place. The string attached snaps with enough force and I stare at it silently.
Yes, I am Queen of the Village of Smiles, the Faceless Queen. I have my stake. I have my claim. I have my quee–my crown! The nameless asshole who brought me here... shouldn't have. By bringing me here, by allowing me to claim my piece of the pie? He killed himself. He just didn't know it.
I don the crown atop my head.
Saltbled can't die, not truly. I am a living testimony of that. When my salt leaves my physical being, it merely molds back into what it once was. Of course it somehow knows to flee to some haven, lest some foul creature absorb all of me. Odd, that, but Saltbled are Saltbled, cursed to die a thousand deaths. To become something like the very monsters we face.
Yes, I surely can die, but not traditionally, not forever. The salt heals all–taking away memories in its healing embrace. A queen without memory, cursed to wear a mask. I couldn't become a monster.
Faceless maybe, as one could say.
"What is a lesser man to a queen?" My form still, I look down into the empty black of the nameless conqueror's helm "What is a faceless queen to a god?" I ask, knowing damn well the answer, I just love theatrics, I suppose.
Speaking of, even though this is solely for myself, "What is a nameless god to a non-believer?"
I stand, foot atop the lifeless husk of what was supposed to be a nigh-unkillable god. I chuckle sardonically at the word and my hammer drops to my side, clanking off of a nameless corpse's armor. I stare emptily at the door this monstrosity—a more fitting word—so vehemently guarded.
Salvation? Dominion? Both, neither?
... Splendor?
I glance down at my feet, something gnaws at my brain as I stare at the husk of the false idol. Something feels wrong, but when hasn't it? My vision captures my mask, split in two–my blood sheens something special. There, both pieces lay, on the other side of the decidedly deceased, yet impossibly tall being.
What am I talking about, impossible? I've killed bigger. Saltbleeder, much bigger. I shudder, thinking about a particularly large dragon-man-squid-thing. I don't even want to try and pronounce his name anymore.
Godsdamn it. I gnaw on my tooth, trying to sooth the pain the only way I know how.
Kraeken Dragon Skourzh, my arch enemy in reminding me why I should've actually paid attention in Eldritch fucking Abomination.
"Fucking' what was it? Crack-n-Gin Scoreboard?" I shake my head and wince, an audible pop sounds behind closed lips.
Right, getting off topic.
"The answer, though I'm pretty damn sure you don't care–y'know being dead and all," I snort loudly as I spit a bloodied canine down at the nameless, dead bastard. "Is nothing. All that glitters is gold, if a candle is what you seek, find it in the dark."
I pull my bloodied, glistening sabaton to the other, my feet standing at the ready once more. I have claimed my right to rule through bloodshed alone. My comrades, how few left there are, knew of my quest.
Some questioned, some were silenced.
I have earned this. This is my island, my despicable hell for any and all saltless enough to die by sea. Aside from me, I mean.
I grab my parted mask, placing it in my backsack. I can fix that later, a queen can deal with a little mask-off time as it were. So be it if the world thinks me too ugly to rule.
I rule the crown now. They will drown. And they will suffer.
I step toward the door, as I pass over the departed guardian who'd once sought to keep forever shut. I murmur words of prayer with each step. "And for the selfish, gold will lead the way to salvation," I quote from the Book of The Fool and The Prophet, written in two parts by both respectively.
"For the selfless, to drown, drunk in wine."
I stop and stare quietly at the contents behind the once enclosed door. My jaw clenches as I eye-fuck my apparent destiny. "Well...?"
That's right, my destiny is a fucking well.
Why did my Gods want me to find a fucking well?! I breathe deeply outwards, through my nose as I stare at the dip in the saltless earth. I was destined to follow the Fool.
It was foolish of me to think my destiny wouldn't surprise me.
I slowly step towards the black abyss, trying to peer further downwards the length of the apparent fate-well. I gulp once as I quickly realize I can't see the bottom.
"Well... shit." I mutter.
And then I drop.
. . . . .
Three fillies screamed into the night as lightning struck. Their salt-drenched forms huddled together as they took shelter in the long abandoned sanctuary. They hadn't made it past the bridge when the storm started.
It forced them forward instead of back. They'd entered, albeit unwillingly, the bottommost floor building of worship. At some point in time, anyway, it was now decayed.
Old, decrepit. Useless.
The Black Spire, Ponyville knew it as. Loomed over the smallest ocean, but an ocean of black. A dark, endless void that traversed deeper than anypony had ever been. This tower was a thing of Griffon legend, a thing of legend that would have remained as such, had it not been for three little fillies.
Three adventurous little fillies.
The taste of salt on the air was strong, strange for a ruin in the very middle of the Everfree. Strange there was an ocean in the middle of the Everfree. Yet the fillies were drawn towards its salt-soaked air. They should have left when they'd arrived. Verify and go.
They did not.
The weather stormed outside and two of the three fillies were crying, saltless, shameless tears of fear.
They were scared, every right to be having been so young. One, was not, however. The orange filly of the bunch tried to ease herself away from the clasped other, two. She struggled against their fear. She felt empowered to stay strong.
She didn't know why.
Scootaloo, albeit normally, seemingly unafraid, always wore a mask. She was terrified of many outcomes. Normally, half the time her imagination consisted of death. Her friends, herself.
In both her two friends having wanted to try out archeology after having caught a film, in having found themselves lost and stuck in this abandoned tower, she wasn't scared. Her one wing flapped restlessly. Her other hung loosely at her side.
It should hurt, but it didn't.
Because they were scared and they needed somepony to be strong. She could do that. She pulled herself free from their vice-like embrace and scoffed at her two friends. "What? You guys are scared over a storm?" She asked, while not untrue, was still a little cruel for her friends.
Applebloom, the light yellow equine of the three nodded her head slowly. She shivered in Sweetie Bell's hooves; the white unicorn filly herself had done the very same. "Ah-Ah told y'all Ah don't like sto-storms, Scoots." The earth pony swallowed the lump that was in her throat. Her auburn, fear-filled eyes burned into Scootaloo's memory.
"This'un here is just-is just unnatural!" The storm was indeed, unnatural. Almost as if it wanted to swallow them whole. The old tower groaned as wind and endless rain barrelled into the cement walls.
Thunder struck.
With that, Applebloom resumed her inane quaking in her other friend's barrel. Sweetie Bell was no worse for wear. "If it t'weren't fer this s-stupid lake..." Applebloom grew quiet as she huddled closer with Sweetie Belle beneath the light of a window.
Scootaloo almost felt something in her. Something violent. She ignored it promptly.
"Alright, fine! If you two are gonna be such big foals, I'll go get help, myself! Even with my broken wing, I'd have a better time walking than listening to you two neighg and moan!" Her glare lessened the tearflow from her friend's muzzle.
Applebloom glared back, a scoff escaped her damp muzzle. The taste of salt in her mouth. "Y'think yer high n'mighty don't'cha? We wouldn't be in this mess if'n you didn't throw our compass away!" Scootaloo was taken aback.
The salt in the air seemed to grow thicker.
"It was broken! The stupid thing kept spinning!" It was, she remembered it clearly! The broken compass stated North was South one moment, the next it just kept going and going. She had to rid herself of it.
Just like her friend.
"Yer gonna be the stupid thing spinnin' real soon, y'hear!" Scootaloo was about to raise her voice when a choked sob escaped from her bestest-best friend. Her words died in her throat as she finally looked at Sweetie Belle.
The white, blueberry-rasberry maned filly sobbed even louder at her mutual friends' outbursts. She didn't want to be a big foal. She didn't remember which way was home and it scared her. Her friends yelling just made everything worse! "Stop it, stop it please! Please stop shouting!" Her hooves removed themselves from Applebloom and flung to her ears. She cried, she cried impossibly wet tears as rain hammered against the old stone building.
"Make-make the st-storm sto-oo-ooop!" Sweetie Belle wailed.
It was too hard to tell how bad it actually was. The storm. It had bouts of quiet, followed surely moments later by almost monstrous like roars. Scootaloo looked away from her friends' faces, her brows furrowed. Her lavender eyes darkened.
She needed to be brave. She needed to be selfless. For her friends, for Sweetie Belle.
Without a word, she left through the open, slabbed doorway. The bridge groaned with the storm, and she gulped. With one last look behind her, she opened her mouth, "I'll-I'll be back with help in no ti-" a scream cut her off.
The floor beneath her promptly collapsed and she fell downward. A scream shouted, but Scootaloo couldn't ascertain as to who it was from. Herself or one of her friends, she gathered.
When a large chunk of rock struck her on the way down as she fell, she'd only thought one thing.
Am I gonna die?
With a splash, she disappeared beneath the water, shadowed by the old-cement tower that loomed over the blackest lake. The blackest ocean. The taste of salt grew heavier in the air.
Applebloom stared emptily at where her friend just was. Sweetie Belle openly sobbed as she shouted her best friend's name.
And Scootaloo?
Scootaloo was no more.
Author's Note
Please note, the excerpt is not from an actual source. I just feel like I wanted to build upon The House of Splendor's religion.
Well, what'ya think? Worked on this for a couple days now, so if I happened to forget what I wrote or retconned anything already, please just let me know.
Excerpt from the Book of The Fool and The Prophet:
He who sought riches to protect riches, to amass a grand collection and be its eternal, golden guardian. He must forge himself a mask. A mask crafted of pure gold. The face of man is bound by the flesh of man: imperfect, ephemeral, and rotten. But a face of gold knows none of these flaws. For one to protect gold; one must become gold. And gold will become him.
-p. 217, Pesoñe (On The Fool's Burden)
. . . . .
Life starts at sea.
Life ends at sea.
This had been a fact for as long as the world had known. For as long as humanity had existed, both the sea and salt had been there first. Salt made us into what we are. Magi, bowmen, fish, paladins, me. Salt interweaved, co-existed through each and every being put on this planet. If one was trained, attuned to it, they could even sense the salt in other living beings. How much their salt was worth, in essence. A skill all but useless on this damnable isle!
As such, I only enjoyed killing the bigger targets. I could sense their salt-strewn soul from a mile away. That, and they were much, much more of a profit.
As much as we know of the salt, we know not of the salt's origin. We know not of its purpose. The salt aids, the salt takes away. I was protected from it, now I am not. The ebb and flow. My golden mask, once whole, now sits in two split halves–well, two new wholes, I guess:
One within my bag, the other--well, I'm not jumping into that well again, now am I? Damn thing fell from my bag as I fell from that stupid well. If it ain't there, then... If by any chance the mask isn't down there, then I have a chance of seeing it elsewhere here. Wherever elsewhere just so happens to be.
The fact I'm back where it all started? Minor issue, my mask comes first. I'll worry over the fact I'm meditating at the Shivering Shores, again, later. I pull the golden half of a face from my backsack, just holding it comforts me.
The coronet atop my head does as well.
Yet I wonder, why am I so adamant about retrieving the other half? Why do I worry so to fix what had been broken? Why not get a new one? Why not just keep the crown? Simple, really. My mask is my face, it is my me, my very being!
It is and always will be my first mask. I'd received it when I'd first succumbed to the House of Splendor. When I'd first truly sought riches in the name of The Fool and The Prophet! I need that other half!
Without it, I'm...
I sigh and finally breathe deep the salt I have grown so dear to miss. I remember this like it was yesterday. Maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. Time doesn't pass here. The smell is always the same. Salt on the air; it's been too long. My liberated flesh aches, my decay breathes in the salt along with me. Raggedy, wheezing expiration of air.
Well, truly, the Faceless Queen. The Queen who fell and fell and fell.
Splashing of water stirs me my from my mind. Perhaps just waves on the ocean. I try and ignore the distracting noise; the crashing of the blackest water on the blackest sand. Godsdammit. My upper lip twitches. More splashes and I know my breath hitches as my eyes open. I frown, and then I don't. My eyes shift from my half of a whole me to the... "What the devil're you?" I ask what is supposed to be a rhetorical question.
A piercing, shrill scream assaults my ears as the answer to it.
. . . . .
Salt wafts through my olfactory holes, a sneeze escapes me and I wake with a groan.
I rub at the back of my head with the frog of my hoof. Did something hit me? Somepony fell... I think I fell? Ugh, my head is ringing something awful. "Applebloom, s'it a good time go back now?" I grumble as, slowly, my eyes squint open, the lids peel back from a gathered crust of sorts. Blurry surroundings become clear and confusion shoots down my spine. I am alone.
Where am I?
A dark, unlit room. Check. Spider webs in the corner. Doubly check. The floor thuds like a rock when I stand, my a hooves finding purchase on it... the tower? The tower! That's right! Sweetie Belle, Applebloom and me left Ponyville earlier to seek out this tower!
This stupid tower!
I look around the remainder of the room with a strange hastiness–I take in everything with a steady perception I didn't even know I had; dust and salt particles visibly float within the walls–giant slabs of brick the material of choice. A window, the outside world looks grey, yet considerably more calm. Is the storm over? A doorway, itself ajar.
Where's Applebloom and Sweetie Belle? Friends? Where are my friends? Did they leave? To go get help maybe... yeah! Probably put me in this room to be safe, maybe I passed out from the pain in my win... I stop as my head turns to look at the broken limb and stare. A dull, rising panic builds in my chest. My heart begins to hammer, thunder in my skin as my vision pulses. I fight back the urge to scream in anguish. Rage. Anger. What happened to me?
What happened to my wings?!
In place of my once rather useless, now entirely useless flappers are two, bloody stubs. Tinted whites of my humerus bones jut out from the scabbing, clotty remnants of what used to be.
I continue to gawk at the wounds. "When did–why? Why would somepony do this to me? I'll--I'll kill them!" I gasp, my eyes shoot open as I make the audible threat. The words reverberate in the stale, bleak spire. Nothing responds, thankfully, as I stave off my strange case of unbridled wrath. How did this happen? Why did this happen... and why can't I feel it?
I take a deep, shaking breath as I all but have to force myself to look away. No tears stain my muzzle; no water works. I'm not crying. I should be crying. I would be crying! Why am I not crying? I look over to the open doorway, the wooden piece itself off its hinges, outward into the hall. I take a glance back at my missing wings and I bite my lip. Why don't I care? Outside of feeling... mad that they're gone, I don't care elsewise. It's strange, because I know my wounds should be hurting, that I should care that my wings're even gone, but I simply don't.
It's frightening and empowering all the same.
I take few cautious hoofsteps out of the room, peeking my head around the thick wall. Checking my surroundings just to be sure, I spot the exit I... fell from. Yet the bridge leading back to shore is perfectly intact. The old, unnaturally undulating span of cement, cricks, and groans sound loudly with each crashing wave. A sensation wriggles up my spine. The staircase we passed by from the bridge, going up, no longer rubble. Why a staircase to climb a tower was built outside of said tower, I will never know.
I look upwards, imagining what awaited at the top.
The bridge, staircase.
Both seemed newer than what I remembered them being. Either the repairponies came by or–I shake my head, "don't be stupid, Scoots. Yeah, I'm in the tower still, just a different part of it maybe." I doubt, I know it's not the truth, but thinking I'm in a different time is just too crazy a thought. Maybe whatever hit me took my wings? Or were they already gone?
No, they're still scabbing over. Fresh, don't forget that. It's weird how bad my memory is acting up. I feel like I should remember these things, that this had all just occurred, but I don't. Burning questions, so many burning questions.
Why did we need to come here, to this tower? The inquiry sits in the back of my mind, but does not try and leave to find the answer. I look down the other, shorter end of the hall and spot nothing but a simple chest. A dark chasm awaits directly behind it–water splashing confirms what sat below.
A chest trap? How does that work, wouldn't the chest need to be on the other side of the gap? Not that it would be, considering how it's simply a flat wall that then went on promptly downwards, of course.
Curiosity piques, only natural, and I brazenly stumble forward. Questions ever-aflame fill my mind with a longing to search for the answers. Why a chest? How did Sweetie and AB miss it? How did I miss it? How deep's that cliff? What's inside?
As I near the wooden coffer, my muscles quiver and shake. A bead of sweat rolls down the middle of my muzzle; either due to the heat or the stress of the whole situation, I do not know
A pinching feeling in the back of my neck tells me not to open it, I wholeheartedly agree, yet I go to anyway. My hooves tremble, especially the one moving to open the mystery box. I close my eyes as I try and hit at it. It's hefty lid creaks as it props open on the first try. Dust wafts from the long-untouched material as it falls backward on its own accord. My heart thuds for seemingly no reason, l o u d l y, at the sight.
A little black charm sits at the bottom of it next to a small spool of rope. My eyebrow raises. This is what my gut wanted me to be afraid of? A rock?
I pick the little doodad up and place it under a more scrutinizing eye--which is still a thing that I have. Apparently. The more I look at it, the darker it seems to appear. Impossibly dark, but yet it seems to just be a void. Absorbing light, but not hurting anything in its darkness. Its shadows twist and warp around the material, which itself looks to be obsidian. Cracks in the surface are even–the flat curvature proves it must have been pony or griffon-made. So, what, I got a designer black rock?
Stupid.
Grumbling to myself, I grab the little twine string that sat next to it and stare inquisitively for all of a moment. Just noticing the little hole in the top of the obsidian minilisk, I shrug and proceed to make a hippie necklace. Placing the once artifact, now lucky charm, around my neck, it drops against my barrel.
It just sits there.
It is literally just a magic looking stone that sits there and looks spooky. Wicked. Cannot wait to scare Applebloom with this! The amount of voodoo hoodoo she'll think I'm performing!
I don't laugh.
The thought that would have normally sent a smile careening across my face, doesn't. In fact, I didn't even find my own joke funny. The fact my friends are missing and the thoughts circling around my wings are... kinda holding me down. Metaphorically speaking. I shake my head as I turn around, the new necklace gently whipping with the motion.
I don't see its shadow-like tendrils pulse.
Well, I would go upstairs as we'd originally wanted to... since I'm by myself, I'd better not. Who knows how many floors this tower consisted of. I could get seriously hurt—my eyes glance at two bloodied stubs—or worse.
Maybe I just go back?
I nod my head; it's a better idea than potential death. I step, finally back through the internal boundaries of the black tower, and I stand upon just the cusp of the bridge. I have to stop myself as I stare blankly out into... an entirely different beach the one I remember in my head.
A little silhouette sits on the shore–no, rather, in the shore's blackest tide. The grey skies cast a minimal amount of color into the world; I can barely make out gold from where I am. The thought freezes me for a second, but I can't say as to why.
The gold moves and my eyes widen; it has be a member of the Royal Guard–they're looking to find me! At the prospect, I gallop forth to my salvation–my savior.
I trot across the bridge with a vigor unmatched! Having wings that–having had wings that didn't work most of the time, my endurance is pretty good. Especially if I can barrel down this length and still keep going! Just totally don't think about how the bridge can break at any possible second.
Yeah.
The figure draws nearer, I'm on the beach sprinting in the sand towards it. The water splashes as it rushes past my fetlocks. I will leave, I will be safe.
I will–absolutely bucking die.
For my savior's grin is predatory. Her hair is blood. Her eyes, hellfire.
. . . . .
All beings have salt in their dark souls, salt exists in everything. Yet, I feel nothing as I stare down at the small, orange pegasus before me. How do I know what this little creature is?
I know it is a pegasus for two simple facts. One: she has a couple of very peculiar, very imperfect nasty-looking stubs on her back. Two, and this one is much more simpler to explain: I've killed them before.
We both sit on our haunches, swaying with and against the dark waves; the water barely crashes into us as it splashes to and from the grey-black shore. Salt thick on the wind, my arms rests over my knees; magenta eyes continue to train on mine.
The pegasus' likewise colored mane flows faintly on the wind. Aside from the off-colors and pint-size, the only thing of note is the horse's--I'm assuming the filly's wings. Or lack thereof, really. The base of them an unsightly blackish-blue. The rest... let's say it would be of no surprise to me the pegasus doesn't ever fly again.
Poor creature.
Obviously, the creature is either sapient or stupid. Obviously, because only either a sapient or a stupid pegasus screams when something scares them. Horses neigh, unicorn die, pegasi apparently scream.
Definitely not worth a damn piece. Would a merchant buy the frail thing? Pegasi, while not rare, are still quite an uncommon sight in the kingdoms. Might fetch me a pretty penny, I suppose. Though, it might not. Decisions.
"What are you?" She asks as I continue to stare in silence at it.
Oh, so it talks too. There goes eating the thing.
Author's Note
Shorter, but for a reason! Needed the two to sort out their respective... quests.
