Brisk Bronco came furtively down the crag, a shambling gaunt Pony with tortured eyes. He moved in a series of quick dashes using panels of dark air for concealment, running behind each passing shadow, at times crawling with his head low to the ground. Arriving at the final low outcrop of rock, he halted and peered across the plain.
Far away rose low hills, blurring into the sky, which was mottled and sallow like poor milk glass. The intervening plains stretched like rotten velvet, black-green and wrinkled, streaked with ocher and rust. A fountain of liquid rock jetted high in the air, branched out into black coral. In the middle distance a family of gray objects evolved with a sense of purposeful destiny: spheres melted into pyramids, became domes, tufts of white spires, sky-piercing poles; then, as a final tour de force, tesseracts.
Brisk Bronco cared nothing for this; he needed food, and out on the plain were plants. They grew on the ground, or sometimes on a floating lump of water, or surrounding a core of hard, black gas. There were dank black flaps of leaf, clumps of haggard thorn, pale green bulbs, stalks with leaves and contorted flowers. There were no recognizable species, and the Pony had no way of knowing if the leaves and tendrils he had eaten yesterday would poison him today.
He tested the surface of the plain with a hoof. The glassy surface (though it likewise seemed a construction of red and gray-green pyramids) accepted his weight, then suddenly sucked at his leg. In a frenzy he tore himself free, jumped back, squatted on the temporarily solid rock.
Hunger rasped at his stomach. He must eat. He contemplated the plain. Not too far away a pair of Monsters played—sliding, diving, dancing, striking flamboyant poses. Should they approach, he would try to kill one of them. They at least vaguely resembled Ponies, and so should make a good meal. He knew, though, that they might just as easily try to eat him if they had the opportunity.
He waited. A long time? A short time? I might have been either; duration had neither quantitative nor qualitative reality. The sun and moon had vanished, and there was no standard cycle or recurrence. “Time” was a word blank of meaning.
Matters had not always been so. Brisk Bronco retained a few tattered recollections of the old days, before system and logic had been rendered obsolete. Ponies had dominated the world by virtue of a single assumption; that an effect could be traced to a cause, itself the effect of a previous cause.
Then came the terrible hour when the iron clad rules of the world failed, and from that moment all the ordered tensions of cause-and-effect dissolved. Logic, observation and knowledge proved useless in the age of unreason. From the teeming masses of beings who once had inhabited the land, only a few survived—the mad. They were now the Monsters, lords of their era, their discords so exactly equivalent to the vagaries of the land as to constitute a peculiar, wild wisdom. Or perhaps the disorganized matter of the world, loose from the old organization, was peculiarly sensitive to psycho-kinesis.
A handful of the sane, Ponies like Brisk Bronco, managed to exist, but only through a delicate set of circumstances. They were the ones most strongly charged with the old causal dynamic. It persisted sufficiently to control the metabolism of their bodies and prevent them from becoming Monsters, but could extend no further. They were fast dying out, for sanity provided no leverage against the environment. Sometimes their own minds sputtered and jangled, and they would go raving and leaping out across the plain, until they finally foundered in a pool of black iron, or blundered into a vacuum pocket, to bat around like a fly in a bottle.
These Ponies, survivors from the age of reason, now numbered very few. Brisk Bronco lived with four others. Two of these were old and soon would die. Brisk Bronco likewise would die unless he found food.
Out on the plain, one of the Monsters, Loco-in-the-Coco, sat down, caught a handful of air, a globe of blue liquid, a rock, kneaded them together, pulled the mixture like taffy, gave it a great heave. It uncoiled from his claws like rope. Seeing this, Brisk Bronco crouched low. There was no telling what devilry would occur to the creature. He and all the rest of them—unpredictable!
They were moving toward him; had they seen him? He flattened himself against the sullen yellow rock.
The two Monsters paused not far away. He could hear their sounds and crouched, sick from conflicting pangs of hunger and fear.
Loco-in-the-Coco sank to his haunches, then rolled flat on his back, flailing his limbs upward at random, addressing the sky in a series of musical cries, sibilants, guttural groans. It was a personal language he had only now improvised, but Fruit Cake understood him well.
“A vision!” cried Loco. “I see past the sky. I see knots, spinning circles. They tighten into hard points; they will never come undone.”
Fruit Cake perched on a pyramid, glanced over her shoulder at the mottled sky.
“An intuition,” chanted Loco, “a picture out of the other time. It is hard, merciless, inflexible.”
Fruit Cake poised on the pyramid, dove through the glassy surface, swam under Loco Coco, lay flat beside him.
“Observe the relict on the hillside. In his blood is the whole of the old race—the narrow Ponies with minds like cracks. He has exuded the intuition. Clumsy thing—a blunderer,” said Loco.
“They are all dead, all of them,” said Fruit Cake. “Although three or four remain.” (When past, present and future are no more than ideas left over from another era, like boats on a dry lake—then the completion of a process can never be defined.)
Loco said, “This is the vision. I see the Ponies swarming the Earth, then whisking off to nowhere, like gnats in the wind. This is behind us.”
The Monsters lay quiet, considering the vision.
A rock, or perhaps a meteor, fell from the sky, struck into the surface of the pond. It left a circular hole which slowly closed. From another part of the pool a gout of fluid splashed into the air, floated away.
Loco spoke, “Again—the intuition comes strong! There will be lights in the sky.”
The fever died in him. He hooked a claw into the air, hoist himself upright.
Fruit Cake lay quiet. Slugs, ants, flies, beetles were crawling on her, boring, breeding. Loco knew Fruit Cake could arise, shake off the insects, stride off. But Fruit Cake seemed to prefer passivity. That was well enough. He could produce another Fruit Cake should he choose, or a dozen of her. Sometimes the world swarmed with Monsters, all sorts, all colors, tall as steeples, short and squat as flower-pots. Sometimes they hid quietly in deep caves, and sometimes the tentative substance of Earth would shift, and perhaps one, perhaps thirty of them would be shut in the subterranean cocoon, and all would sit gravely waiting, until such time as the ground would open and they could peer blinking and pallid out into the light.
“I feel a lack,” said Loco-in-the-Coco. “I will eat the Pony.” He set forth, and sheer chance brought him near to the ledge of yellow rock. Brisk Bronco sprang to his hooves in panic.
Loco-in-the-Coco tried to communicate so that Brisk Bronco might pause while Loco ate. But Brisk had no grasp for the many-valued overtones of Loco’s voice. He seized a rock between his front hooves, hurled it at Loco. The rock puffed into a cloud of dust, blew back into the Pony’s face.
Loco moved closer, extended several long arms. Brisk bucked with his hind legs. His hooves went out from under him, and he slid out onto the plain. Loco ambled complacently behind him. Brisk began to crawl away. Loco moved off to the right—one direction was as good as another. He collided with Fruit Cake, and began to eat Fruit Cake instead of the Pony. Brisk Bronco hesitated; then approached, and joining Loco, pushed chunks of nuts and candied fruit into his mouth.
Loco said to the Pony, “I was about to communicate an intuition to her whom we dine upon. I will speak to you.”
Brisk Bronco could not understand Loco-in-the-Coco’s personal language. He ate as rapidly as possible.
Loco spoke on, “There will be lights in the sky. The great lights.”
Brisk rose to his feet and, warily watching Loco, seized Fruit Cake’s leg with his jaws, began to pull her toward the hill. Loco watched with quizzical unconcern.
It was hard work for the spindly Pony. Sometimes Fruit Cake floated; sometimes she wafted off on the air; sometimes she adhered to the terrain. At last she sank into a knob of granite which froze around her. Brisk Bronco tried to jerk Fruit Cake loose, and then to pry her up with a stick, without success.
He ran back and forth in an agony of indecision. Fruit Cake began to collapse, wither, like a jellyfish on hot sand. The Pony abandoned the hulk. Too late, too late! Food going to waste! The world was a hideous place of frustration!
Temporarily Brisk Bronco's belly was full. He started back up the crag, but then spied flying creatures, and he hid behind a colorful beetle.
Cautiously, he peered over the rusted hood, and he saw they were approaching and would pass nearby. For a hopeful moment he thought they were Ponies like himself, although of the winged type. What had they once been called? He pondered for a few moments, until the word came to him. Pegasus, he thought. He had not seen any of those in a long time. As distance decreased, though, he saw that these two were quite large, and in addition to wings they each had a very long and sharp-looking horn. They must be Monsters.
The two banked toward him. They’d seen him. Brisk tensed his hindquarters, getting ready to sprint, but his situation was dire. The direction he faced was seldom the direction the varying frictions of the ground allowed him to move, which made fleeing danger problematic—even when the source of danger was unable to fly. And when they could?
The two Monsters landed in front of him, trapping him with his back against the beetle. The larger of the two was an off-white, tinged with just a hint of pink, and its mane and tail were colored entirely soft pink. The other was colored deep indigo blue, while its mane and tail were a softer shade of cerulean. Both of them seemed almost as emaciated and haggard as himself, their hair disheveled and their coats stained with mud.
The larger one spoke, in a strong but feminine voice, and language that he could understand. She said, “Well met, stranger! I am Celestia, and my sister by my side is Luna.” Then they waited expectantly for his response.
His eyes darted left and right, seeking a way out. Then he licked his lips and answered tentatively, “I hight Brisk Bronco.”
The white giant questioned him further. “Brisk Bronco, knowest thou any other Ponies who survive hereabout?”
Wide-eyed, fearful, he shook his head. He had no reason to betray the others to these Monsters.
She asked next, “Hast thou seen any sign of the Draconequus?” Seeing his blank response, she prompted further. “Apep, Discord, the Serpent That Never Dies. He is the author of our world’s misery.”
Confused, he merely shook his head again.
She pressed on. “My sister and I have found a powerful magical weapon, and we seek Apep that we may vanquish him and restore reason to the land.”
The dark one nudged her sister and said, “Celestia, dost thou not see this stallion is terrorized? He wilt provide no aid.”
“Monsters. . .” Brisk muttered, and he made a break. His hooves scrabbled at the ground, sending him forward to almost collide with the white creature. Both of them jumped out of the way as he made an escape.
They watched him go, and Celestia lowered her head and sighed. “Monsters. . .” she repeated. “E’en now, ponies still see us as such.”
“And so we are, as we have always been,” Luna responded coolly. “Monsters created to fight other Monsters. Let us focus our minds upon our mission, and waste no more time dreaming of anything more than that.”
They took to the air, and continued their quest.
Brisk Bronco made his way, erratically, back up the crag and eventually found the place where the rest of his small group of ponies had camped: two elderly stallions, two mares. The mares, Sweet Leaf and Amber Drop, had also been out foraging. Sweet Leaf had brought in a slab of lichen; Amber a bit of nameless carrion.
The old stallions, Stiff Bristle and Jimbo Perhaps, sat quietly waiting for food or for death.
The mares greeted Brisk Bronco sullenly. “Where is the food you went forth to find?”
“I had a whole carcass,” said Brisk Bronco. “I could not carry it.”
Stiff Bristle had slyly stolen the slab of lichen and was cramming it into his mouth. It came alive, quivered and exuded a red ichor which was poison, and the old pony died.
“Now there is food,” said Brisk Bronco. “Let us eat this Stiff!”
But the poison created a putrescence; the body seethed with blue foam, flowed away of its own energy.
The females turned to look at the other old pony, who said in a quavering voice, “Eat me if you must—but why not choose Brisk, who is younger than I?”
Sweet Leaf, the younger of the mares, gnawing on the bit of carrion, made no reply.
Brisk said, warily, “We might not be the last Ponies. I saw two today that I thought were Monsters, but now I am not sure.” He related his encounter with the two alicorns.
“Monsters!” Jimbo exclaimed. “This is surely madness.”
“No,” Sweet Leaf replied firmly. “I believe them. We should try to find them and help.”
“We would be risking our lives for something that may not even exist,” Amber protested.
“But what do we have to lose?” Brisk cried out desperately. “We are already dead!”
“Then let us travel together,” said Sweet Leaf. “Let us try!”
So, together, they set out.
Celestia and Luna followed the trail of death and destruction left by Discord, who was traveling in fearful leaps and bounds. Then they were stunned by a vision of a bloody battle between Monsters and some form of frito banditos: they saw a great, white buffalo, but he was wounded and then fell, dying. Then they saw others, similarly wounded, and all of them died. The attackers had extracted creatures from the hearts of these proud buffalos, and left them to wither and die.
The sisters set off to follow the trail of deaths, over the hills and outward toward the sea.
Most certainly Discord had fled into the North Sea, and this was confirmed when they discovered a wrecked crude oil derrick, leaking black sludge into the water. Beyond that, he had sliced a massive gash into a steep cliff face, carving out a deep berth for himself and his followers in the sheer rock. Out from this cove peeped the head of an uprooted tree. They were surprised to see it for there were few living trees about these days. The tree quizzically looked at them, evincing no sign of fear. In fact, it seemed quite indifferent and not as though they posed any threat whatsoever. Perhaps it even thought that they were only another manifestation of its own mind.
The pair of ponies risked landing in the cove, where they came upon an outdoor dining eating area with an upscale restaurant and a buffet bar; the tablecloths were littered with tiny bits of food.
The two haggard and emaciated ponies looked around with astonishment. “Well... Perhaps we could tarry here for a little while before continuing our search,” Princess Luna suggested.
Brisk Bronco, Jimbo Perhaps, Sweet Leaf and Amber Drop approached a great hill, and at the foot of the hill they found a beautiful, golden bird, its feathers still bloodstained, its strings of pearls broken, and one side shorn of its tail feathers.
“I am the great dancer,” she said. “I sought to sing the heart of the world, and unleash the song upon the land.”
The ponies peered at her in puzzlement, but did not know what to say.
“But the song was within me,” she continued, “and I have killed myself.”
“We must follow the trail,” said Brisk.
“Then go,” she said softly. “But in the end, there is no trail. It is all destruction.”
After a hasty meal, the ponies departed and soon reached the hill.
Recognition dawned upon them. “This is. . . ” Brisk began.
“The spot where Rock Hounds once dug for gems and for the cream of the earth,” continued Sweet Leaf.
The four looked at one another, each hoping that the other would make the plunge into the hole, but each apparently too fearful to be the first.
A great wailing filled their minds suddenly, and they fell to their knees in fear. Then they saw the source of the noise: dire grackles!
These monstrous birds were composed of found bits and pieces: broken spectacles, umbrellas and coat hangers, harnesses and saddlebags, glass bottles and daguerreotypes, fur and feathers. They descended from the heavens in a raging flock, shrieking their hatred for the ponies. Their wings thundered against their foes as they swooped down to bite at Brisk Bronco's mane with razor sharp beaks. Sweet Leaf quickly reared up on her hind legs and struck out with her hooves. Jimbo Perhaps also joined them like an old war-horse making himself useful again by protecting his friends from harm’s way. The dire grackles were relentless, however. Even when all four defenders seemed to be doing everything possible, still there was no stopping these mad creatures who seemed determined to take away what precious little life spark had been left in this dread land.
It seemed the battle would soon be lost, but in desperation the ponies escaped by diving into the mysterious hole, and found themselves in a tunnel where the birds would not follow. They could hear the loud squawking and screeching noises of the grackles outside, prodding them further into the tunnels.
The ponies stumbled down the darkness, their eyes barely able to discern outlines of walls and objects around them. The tunnel seemed like it went on forever. But then they began to notice a strange luminescence coming from nests in the walls: dark eggs glowing with an eerie light! Awestruck at this wondrous discovery, they crept closer to examine these mysteries more closely. One by one each egg was cracked open; inside there were seemingly living creatures that jumped out—dazzling pocket dragons adorned with diamond necklaces and jewels that sparkled in the night like stars. The ponies were amazed. They had heard of such beings but had never before seen one.
The tiny dragons recited:
Disaster looms if you remain,
We cannot let that come to pass.
Our homeland, though dangerous, is where we sustain,
It's our only chance to outlast.
If you stay to aid us, we are doomed,
Forced to defend ourselves from you.
Hate and destruction will consume,
All that once was pure and true.
So please, do not try to help,
Just leave us here in this abyss.
Where no one can see or yelp,
And our struggles will not be missed.
“What is this doggeral?” Brisk asked. “I do not know it. I do not want for long poems! I want food and drink! I want a home and family!”
“Go then!” the Diamond Beasts cried with joyous tears glistening in their eyes. “Go! May you find the world you seek! If you find it, please let us know if we may follow. And tell us if this is death.”
“All right,” said Sweet Leaf. “Wait, what? Wait, no! Wait, what? Wait!” But they were already gone. In their place was another egg, one that was not moving, and inside there was no creature, only a tiny but vicious typhoon.
Sweet Leaf took that egg, wrapped it carefully in a cloth, cradled it close to her body and kept it close to her heart—for someday she would need an extra thing that could be broken to save her own life.
The four ponies continued down the tunnel, where Jimbo slipped and almost fell into a stream of moonmilk, but was caught and pulled back by Amber Drop.
After that close call, the group came upon a stream and another group of creatures: a mob of ghostly platypuses with beaks glowing like pearls at twilight. “We are unused to visitors,” they said. “What brings you to our home?”
“We wish to continue down the tunnel but we cannot see it well enough to view what may be there for us. Will you please guide us?” said Brisk anxiously.
Eagerly the platypuses accepted the request and surrounded the ponies, whistling and singing a rather eerie tune that acted as a torch for their eyes. Then they escorted the ponies all the way down the tunnel, until they emerged onto the shore of a misty sea. The ground was soggy and strewn with many fritos from earlier in the day. Despite the sorry state of these, the platypuses and ponies eagerly gobbled them up. Then the platypuses retreated into the underground, leaving the four ponies to ponder where they should venture next.
Celesta and Luna continued grimly tracking Discord across the land, while they seemed to be slowly losing the lightness of their spirit that they had previously had been so determined to preserve. At last when both ponies were tired, they stopped and rested beneath a large paramecium. Sighing wearily, Celestia stared into the rippling cilia of organism as it slowly drifted above them. “All we see is utter desolation. How can there be anything but death and misery here?”
“Is there any place we can go where there may yet be some solace?” Luna sighed, stamping her hooves in the dirt, striving to make their seat more homely and comfortable for her tired body.
“Our prospects of joy in this place be meagre, Sister,” Celestia answered sadly. “Ballad hath said that this land is too weak to defy Apep and his following—perhaps it hast already given up and hath accepted its unavoidable destiny of sorrow.” She lowered her eyes. “It mayhap be that our mission is already doomed.”
“But this is not our first time facing Apep,” said Luna. “We have always used our greatest effort; so it is not yet time for despair. I have trust in our power and aspire that we yet may prevail.”
“Verily, I would have the same certitude, Luna; yet, I deem we are in a woeful condition anent this, for if the land be capable of healing without the malevolence of savage creatures, then Ballad supposes that the ponies and other creatures here do not wish to relive their lives as others should likely prefer. This I deem strange, for this land could not maintain its aboriginal population without end, never persisting past the inevitable end of their season of life. Howsoever can one deem which is worse for a beast: a death or the constant torment of this life of chaos?”
“The answer doth elude us still,” sighed Luna. “However, in truth there is much we do not know of the world. Whilst it be true that there was afore time a time where naught was but this borderless land, and naught did exist within it save for those that were already inside it, from whom came Apep, how are we to know what life was before this realm? Apep, thine villain! All the world is Chaos’s plaything to destroy.”
“But enough of this persiflage! Look yonder!" Celestia pointed toward the horizon, where a great pink structure loomed up like a fantastic, crystalline castle. “That abomination can only be the work of Apep. Let us vanquish him first, and then see what can be done with the land.” She magically pulled out three magnificent, colorful gems from her equinventory, and they hovered before her. “Are you ready?” She looked to her sister.
Luna nodded and summoned her own three magical gems, then spread her wings and took flight once again, and her sister followed.
The four haggard ponies, Brisk Bronco, Amber Drop, Sweet Leaf and Jimbo Perhaps, wandered aimlessly along the shoreline of the sea, which was foul with the odor of salt, seaweed and blue raspberry gummi sharks. Suddenly they heard the sound of trumpets and military drums! The four looked up to see a large object emerging from the mist ahead. It looked like a nautical riverboat, ribbed with metal and plated all around with sharp-looking metal spikes. The boat was being pulled by a group of sea horses that hissed as they swam, a group that snickered like hyenas and had faces pockmarked with boils, tentacles in place of lips, too many eyes to count and curved spines bunching out the backs of their fishy lizard-like bodies.
“The Red Tide has come!” shrieked an old sailor donkey as he emerged from the dock upon which the boat was pulling into. “Hide yourself and run! Be not too late!” he cried, flinging down his cap.
From the riverboat poured a herd of Monsters, a motley crue of all descriptions. Their leader, however, was recognized. Brisk Bronco exclaimed, “That is the Monster I saw before, when I was foraging.”
Indeed, it was Loco-in-the-Coco, and he was accompanied by other Monsters that he had found or created during the intervening time.
The Monsters dispersed, with some of them wandering toward the small group. The ponies tried to escape, but the ground was slippery, and they lost their footing. They slid upward, to the top of a small outcrop of soft, slimy, yellow glass, while the Monsters seemed to have no difficulty surrounding them.
The ponies cowered, sensing their luck had run out. However, attack did not come. Brisk Bronco said, “Look at the monsters!”
The other ponies looked. The monsters were staring upward.
“Look at the sky!”
A great rainbow had arced upward from some origin point over the horizon, and its colors rippled across the sky. The frosted glass was cracking, breaking, curling aside while the rainbow faded.
“The blue! The blue sky of old times!”
A terribly bright light burnt down, seared their eyes. The rays warmed their naked backs.
“The sun," they said in awed voices. “The sun has come back to Earth.”
The shrouded sky was gone; the sun rode proud and bright in a sea of blue. The ground below churned, cracked, heaved, solidified. They felt the obsidian harden under their hooves; its color shifted to glossy black.
“This is Old Earth,” cried Brisk. “We are the Ponies of Old Earth! The land is once again ours!”
Jimbo asked, “And what about the Monsters?”
“If this is the Earth of old, then let the Monsters beware!”
Confused, the monsters retreated to the shoreline. Loco-in-the-Coco cried to his comrades, “Here is my intuition! It is exactly as I knew. The freedom is gone; the tightness, the constriction are back!”
“How will we defeat it?” asked Screwball.
“Easily,” said Bedlam. “Each must fight a part of the battle. I plan to hurl myself at the sun, and blot it from existence.” And he crouched, threw himself into the air. He fell on his back and broke his neck.
“The fault,” said Loco, “is in the air; because the air surrounds all things.”
Six Monsters ran off in search of air, and stumbling into the sea, drowned.
“In any event,” said Loco, “I am hungry.” He looked around for suitable food. He seized an insect, which stung him. He dropped it. “My hunger remains.”
He spied Brisk Bronco and the other ponies descending from the hill. “I will eat one of the ponies,” he said. “Come, let us all eat!”
Three of them started off—as usual, in random directions. By chance Loco came face to face with Brisk. He prepared to eat, but Brisk whirled on his hooves and gave a forceful buck with both hind legs. Loco died with a crushed skull. One of the other Monsters attempted to step across a crevasse six meters wide and was engulfed; the other sat down, swallowed rocks to assuage his hunger, and presently went into convulsions.
Brisk Bronco led the other Ponies up the hill again, and then he sat, and with a hoof he pointed here and there around the fresh new land. “In that quarter, the new city, like that of the legends. Over here the farms, the orchards.”
“We have none of these,” protested Sweet Leaf.
“No,” said Brisk. “Not now. But once more the sun rises and sets, once more rock has weight and the air has none. Once more water falls as rain and flows to the sea.” He stepped over a fallen Monster. “Let us make plans!”
