Alicorn Down

“Sing me a song about the Twilight

Sing me a song about the Night

Sing me a song about the Golden Dawn

Sing me a song about her plight

Sing about her Light

Sing about your best Friend O’

Sing about your best Friend

Hoof n’ Hoof n’ Hoof O’

Hoof n’ Hoof n’ Hoof- Old Ponish Folk Song”

I grasped for words but could not find them, I could not find them under Rainbow’s cool gaze. I had to look away. Sand flowed like rivulets as I shifted my weight from hoof to hoof.

“I… I am sorry.” Finally, I managed to meet her eyes, an act that brought a shiver to my spine, but her expression was that of compassion…not of abject anger. She was frustrated, yes, even mad (rightfully so) but she was also worried about me, a total stranger who left her fending off wolves while I just…just watched. Once again, I had been completely aware and could do… no did nothing. Her gaze steadied waiting for my explanation.

“-” but just then my speech was cut short as a small voice rang out behind us, and something felt off.

“He- hello”

The voice sounded almost familiar, perhaps something I had heard in my flame, I glanced at Rainbow Dash, her expression was one of surprise, then of doubt, or fear. Her ears lay flat as she stepped back and away from the speaker, a little orange pagesise who stumbled toward us from the dunes.

The filly's name ran across the edge of my mind but I couldn't quite place it… and what had Rainbow so agitated… I mean there was something off putting, but I could not place it.. Her voice was too sharp, or her skin was too tight along her face, or the way she held her wings limp against her side, or her stuttered step, something about the minutiae of this young pony screamed wrong, wrong Wrong! But I also felt wrong for thinking this way, she was just a young filly lost in the desert in this endless twilight, not some monster waiting to lunge at me in the dark… but then why did I feel so scared, my heart beating in my throat., and why was Rainbow so agitated? Something smelled wrong. Like the smell of rotting meat, the smell of broken eggs lingering away in the sun.

The filly looked up at us in the oddest way tilting her head ever so slightly with this odd jittering twitch and bob as if she couldn't quite fix her gaze on us… there was something even odder, about her eyes, something I couldn't quite bring myself to quit notice, but it was there nonetheless. What was that name, where had I seen this filly before? In my flame I had seen her in my flame… she had been in… Canterlot.

“Im so cold” She said

Scotaloo N-No that couldn't be her…

She stepped toward us.

Something about the eyes, something about the way the skin lay all too tight and all too loose, as if sompony were wearing a dress that didn't quite fit. Something about the smell, something about Canterlot… we were so far from Canterlot. We stepped back. The “Filly” took another step toward us. It couldn't be Scootaloo. Scootaloo was dead.

I had seen it in my flame… Rainbow Dash knew all too well, this was not Scotaloo., the skin wasn't skin, the eyes were not eyes, the creature stepped closer. Rainbow dash lowered her horn. I lowered my head ready to draw my knife from its sheath.

Suddenly the creature erupted from its small form, not a pony but a shadow, seeping from the seams of what could not be called skin,, a wall of darkness, an emptiness against the halflight.

My knife flashed from its sheath but trembled in my mouth, what good was such a miger weapon against that great wall of darkness. I had seen it all before, in my flames, what this thing could do. I remembered those timeless meadows of Fluttershy, and that brior of darkness where nothing lived. I remembered Canterlot, I could see in the back of my mind's eye, as it was the sort of thing one wishes to forget, ponies torn to bone, rent to ash as the shadows consumed them, and I, I was shaking.

Rainbow Dash clenched her jaw, breathing hard, and suddenly there was a light, a small but steady orb of light perching balanced at the tip of her horn. The creature, the shadow which had been approaching us, rapidly withdrew back from that light, hissing in frustration. It spoak and for a moment flickered, for a time here and there it was the filly again.

“You left me Rainbow Dash… H,how could you leave me.”

The light flickered, and oh how quickly the darkness advanced before again withdrawing when Rainbow managed to bring her horn aglow again biting her tongue with the effort.

The shadow changed, it was not one filly but three.

You left us Rainbow Dash, how could you leave us. And then it was not three fillys but also five mares, and quite suddenly a whole town, a whole city, the same chilling anthem, her light once so bright seemed all too dim. There was great pain in her eyes, shock, fear but mostly pain, her eyes glistened with tears and she was shaking.

“You left us, how could you leave us! How could you leave us!”

My knife hit the sand with a thump “ She didn’t leave you I did!”

There was an audible click as the entire crowd, the mass of ponies who were not ponies tilted their heads in unison of thought.

Rainbow’s light went out and we were surrounded again by darkness.

Me and Rainbow Dash were embracing each other when again we saw the twilight. That strange half light of moon and sun was a comfort compared to the great darkness that had previously bierated us . The shadow had simply disappeared, leaving us both in a dreadful shiver.

“Tantabus,” I whispered to myself. Rainbow dash glanced at me. I knew more than I let on and she knew it.

Voice trembling I spoak. “E-Equestrea is a land soaked in centuries of pain, and… guilt. I… I was charged to speak up, to say something and I didn’t and now…” I faltered and we sat for a long while in silance.