Ponies walked past my statue, some giving minor glances my way, others completely ignoring me. I don’t blame them, as I have been in this garden long before their great-great-great grandparents were even born, so barely anypony even batted an eye at my statue anymore. It was quite boring, being a statue for who knows how long, to the point that I constantly fell in and out of awareness in cycles that lasted anywhere from a few seconds, to hundreds of years!

During my small periods of awareness, I noticed many different things, like that cult that popped up that one time, calling me “Vetrix, God of Crests”, a crest being what ponies used to call cutiemarks, a title I accepted, mostly because I had forgotten my actual name by that point. The cult doesn’t exist anymore, as far as I’m aware anyway, apparently Celestia was able to dissolve the cult by simply talking them down, which lends credence to why the ponies love her so much I suppose. But that’s then, so let’s return to the present.

I was standing there (not that I had a choice) observing as it slowly started raining, the ponies quickly leaving the garden to find shelter in response. At first, only a few drops fell, but more and more steadily joined in, until it was in the ‘heavy shower’ range, with so many drops of water coming down that the once dry ground rapidly became much less dry. I didn’t really care about the rain though, mostly because I couldn’t feel anything on account of my skin being stone, until I noticed a small earth pony filly walking into my line of sight, her grey fur drenched from the rain…

The filly’s cerulean eyes looked void of life as she sat under the tree across from me, staring at the grass below her fore hooves, seemingly unaware of my rock solid form being across from her. The sky grew darker as the intensity of the rain picked up, making the filly slowly shuffle closer to the tree’s trunk just to avoid most of the water. A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky behind me, casting my shadow over the filly for an instant. The filly turned her head in the direction of the flash & thunder, only for her eyes to land on my statue, causing her expression to briefly twist into one of surprise, before morphing into one of mild intrigue, slowly turning to face my statue properly, her cerulean eyes looking over my stone body with an intensity that pulled my partially unconscious mind back into near full consciousness!

With my restored awareness, I could finally sense the spell keeping me contained being just weak enough for me to possibly escape with my currently low power reserve. Desperate to escape my stone prison, I focused all my power into breaking out, causing my crest to begin glowing for the first time in 200 years.

The crest appeared on the back of my left stone hand, glowing that familiar reddish-pink light as cracks began spiderwebbing off in multiple directions from the centre of the symbol, the cracks themselves having that same reddish-pink light shining through them. The cracks spread up my stone arm rapidly, the sound of the cracking barely heard over the sound of the storm, and quickly began spreading over my stone torso and up my neck.

The grey earth pony filly watched with wide eyes as she saw glowing cracks spread across my statue, eventually completely covering me in softly glowing cracks. After a few seconds of nothing else happening, the cracks briefly dimmed before literally exploding in a bright flash of reddish-pink light, blinding the filly and causing her to cover her eyes with her hooves in pain, rubbing them tenderly. While she was recovering from the flash, my body fell forward off my pedestal, my metal mask coming off my face just after I hit the ground.

I was taking many deep breaths as I lay there, not only from exhaustion but also from being able to breathe for the first time in at least a thousand years, barley able to believe that I was finally free after all these years. After a minute or so, I shakily lifted myself off the wet ground, slowly looking myself over as muscles I haven’t used in a thousand years turned on. I then noticed my mask on the ground next to me, so I quickly reached over and put it on, the mask’s digital systems coming online the moment it was back on my face, giving me a Heads Up Display of my vitals, revealing that said vitals were all over the place, which wasn’t surprising considering that I had basically been dead whilst in stone, only living in the sense that my soul was still there, until now that is…

Whilst I was trying to do some breathing exercises to calm my wild vitals down, I failed to notice the grey filly now looking at me with a mixture of fear and curiosity, as while she was unwilling to draw attention to herself, she also wanted to know who and what I was, eventually leading her to timidly stand up and slowly inch her way towards me. She continued until she was within reach of me, slowly lifting a hoof up, reaching out until she was a centimetre away from touching me…

Just before she could however, I was surrounded by a red aura, blowing her away from me. I stood up, my aura aiding me in standing as I looked down at the little grey filly, who was now on her back and staring up me in fear, my shadow looming over her small, weak body, her breathing fast and shallow. “Y-you helped me escape from my stone prison…” I said, my voice incredibly horse from lack of use, “you shall be rewarded for this…” I stated, reaching out towards the filly with a gloved hand, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut, expecting the worst…

Author's Note

So, any advice? This is my first story after all, so I need all the constructive criticism I can get!

(Also, the reason why Vetrix's crest only stopped appearing two hundred years ago was because was mostly unconcious during that time, otherwise his crest would occasionally appear when he was either probing the spell keeping him contained, or when trying to communicate with others, with mixed results.)