“There was something to be said
Who would say it?
Who would hark an end to the dreadful silence?
Would the word shine out?
Would the light sound?
….
Only silence is heard.
…
Only silence
The continued deadly silence.
The dreadful silence.
The empty night void of sounding light
The echoless chamber
Silent anthem unheard-.”
-A Friend of Stygian an excerpt from an anthology of poems that go on for way too long
I crawled my way over the scorched earth panting. The sun hadn't gone down in moons, what I would give to see the moon.
Ahead of me, the palace loomed.
What in Tartarus was I thinking? I can't go up there… This endeavor will be the death of me.
Hmm.. maybe not a bad idea, maybe there is true shade in the afterlife.
Ha. Was that really my answer? give up before I have begun, leave everypony else to die of heat and famine?
Ok. Breath.
I taped my hoof to my chest breathing in. And removing my hoof from my chest I breathed out.
It reminded me of a pome I had once read.
“A simple plea with eternity
With the length and breadth of time
Just for a part
A moment
An inhale of peace amongst the chaos.”
-Somepony after dealing with discord
But why did I have to be the one to do it…
To face off against her majesty, to ask her to bring down the burning sun.
On either side of me, columns of buildings loomed. Their shade, which clumped in small puddles at each building's base provided no refuge.
The sun, which hung high aloft upon the pinnacle of Castle Equestria allowed for no such kindness as usable shade.
As I walked I often peeked into a window here or there.
Empty shops and abandoned homes, dust touching every corner, food left uneaten and the toys of foals strewn about untouched, or in a flower shop here or there left with only charred stims...
The road sat cracked before me. I found myself stepping carefully around places where the stone had actually melted. I halfway noticed a single shoe, a single ring of metal alone on the melting street, a sign of the struggle of fleeing.
Canterlot was desolate, all her citizens having fled many moons ago… not that there had been any moon sense there fleeing… sense what happened to the royal sister, may her soul find rest.
“Fair
burned, and kindled friend.
What has your kindness wrought?
A-oo
To see
To know
that which brought
a beautiful one to rot.
Aroo
Shining gold on
a dark land
and never being seen
Allas
A-oo A-Roo
the blind will not see”
-From the chanting of the tribal Moon Ponies of the far land, as notated and-
translated by Daring Do.
I finally made it to the palace steps, its towers loomed above, and the sun loomed further yet.
I began my ascent.
My mind wondered as I climbed the steps…
anything to keep it off the task at hoof I guess, or off the heat, as with each step the sun seemed to grow hotter, to loom closer in the sky.
Was she trying to touch it to the earth, to torch all of pony kind, all of life on the face of Equis…
Me a solitary and lonely pony, trying to take down an Alicorn… Alone.
A bucking Alicorn!
My friends had tried to convince me not to go. They had gone as far as locking me in the library's broom closet and shoving a bookcase in front of it. They were probably right to do so.
Some things need to be accomplished alone.
Buck me, buck me, what in the name of Luna am I doing. I'm going to die, I'm going to die.
As I ascended my ears flicked back and forth, deliberately radaring for any detectable sound. I might have been shaking, but I was too fearful to notice.
The silence was deafening, the kind of silence that crawls up your back and into your ear and crawls around in your brain for a bit leaving sticky ilkish glue. The kind of silence that somehow both made one want to scream and too fearful to scream. It was too hot to scream, there was only panting.
It was the silence of madness.
And then I was there, the grand doors, the entrance to the castle. Even in my fearful state, I looked up at them in awe. Once so welcoming they loomed above. My horn shone, my sparkle illuminating around it, and the doors opened, becoming a gaping maw. I entered.
“Take joy in knowing you do not know
the future
salad
what will happen next,
salad
as your fate is not tied to one end
salad”
- Ancient ponish Psalm, either written on somepony’s grocery list, or of which the author was hungry.
The interior of the castle was no cooler than the outside. Despite the shade, perhaps to spite it, the inside of the castle was perhaps hotter than outside, the heat mocked my efforts, prodded at my very bones. Despite my fear, I noticed a half-thought, I had stopped sweating. So hot that water did me no good.
“Hello…Is anybody there?” I called my voice reverberating through the corrupted castle's many chambers and rooms.
Echoes of my voice, my foolish call and then.
Silence…
What was I thinking calling out into the darkness like that?
Buck me, buck me, I am going to die.
I paused for a moment to drink from my canteen, only to find it dry. I turned it over and a single drop fell from its mouth, evaporating into thin air before it even hit the ground.
I wandered the halls for what seemed like centuries.
Here in there lay evidence of how majestic the castle had once been. Once delightful now crispy tapestries adorned every wall, some of them in flames. Where grand windows of stained glass once stood lay puddles of multicolored liquid, an oily black against the cracked tiles of the floor.
I found myself entering a grand chamber, the throne room, and there I found her...
"How dare you intrude upon my presence? What do you want, you puny creature, you little pony, you useless thing!" The pale fiery alicorn screamed at me.
I wanted my friends.
