Let me have my dying wish
A shadow dragged itself across the burning metal, as it stubbornly refused to die.
The others had all died. It had heard them screaming, before its ears burned away and the liquid inside boiled. It couldn’t hear anything, anymore. It never would again.
It could barely feel. What little flesh remained was burned to ash. But the bones kept moving forward, cloaked in the incinerated remnants. It could discern four limbs, and the head was still attached, but there was nothing else. Now it was just a shadow of whatever creature it had been before. It could push one leg in front of itself, hook the charred remnants of a hoof onto the soft, burning metal, and drag itself forward, just a little more.
It could see, somehow. The shadow had felt its eyes burn away, but in their place, something new had emerged. New eyes, so that it could see the world burn around it. It could see better than anything else it could do.
It could see the sun. The sun shined now, oh so bright and red, even as the world burned around the shadow. It could still feel the heat. The shadow was still burning, under the light of the sun. It would continue to burn, so long as the sun lived.
So it needed to kill the sun.
When the sun was dead, then there would be only shadow. No more fire, no more pain. Only peace in the darkness. It could die in peace then, it was sure. It just had to keep dragging itself forwards. Towards the edge.
The burning metal against the shadow’s belly had once been a ship. One of a dozen, crewed by a hundred souls each. But all was fire and ash, now.
The shadow had been below-decks when it happened, and that was why it had gotten to hear the screaming, for just a few awful seconds, as the air itself caught fire. The wooden decks burned, the people aboard the ships burned, and now all that was left was the bones. Ashen bones of the dead, and metal bones of the ships. Even the metal was burning now, red and hot, and gently deforming under the heat of the sun.
The bow of the ship was closest to the sun, and so that was where the shadow crawled. The ships were anchored in the bay of a small tropical island before the fire came, and there hadn’t been time to even try to escape. So the bow of the ship must still have been pointed towards the island, where the sun had gone ashore. The shadow would follow her.
The motion of hook-and-drag, the burn of the metal underneath, that all kept the shadow from fading. It kept it focused, and kept it moving forward. Towards the bow, past the piles of bones and ash that used to be ponies and gryphons and minotaurs.
The journey took an eternity; the journey took only seconds. Under the burning sun, time held no meaning. All that mattered was that the shadow reached the bow, where the ship narrowed to a point so that steel could cut through the waves. The sagging bow rail was all that stood between the shadow and the edge of the ship, and the shadow could drag itself forward along the deck no longer.
The forelegs of the shadow were forced against the shifting surface below, and sunk slightly into the molten metal, as it tried to push down against the deck. It had to push itself away from the surface, push itself up. It had to stand, or reach something close enough to standing that it could hook its forelegs over the bow rail, and pull itself over into the water.
But peeling itself off the deck was agony. Metal had bound itself to bone, and molten steel now coated the shadow’s barrel. It dripped and spattered as the shadow struggled to stand, and then began to cool, hardening into a steel coating on the bones that threatened to pull it back down to the deck.
The shadow had to kill the sun. It would kill the sun. It could not be allowed to stop here, because if it stopped here, then it should have just died with the others. So it would stand.
And stand it did, eventually. Steel hardened the limbs, and it stood in a way that the shadow knew was wrong. The legs were spread too wide, searching for stability, and it forced itself to stand taller, stand more straight. Cooling metal cracked and flaked away as the shadow, now unburdened by flesh, learned once more how to stand.
It could see the island now. When the ships had first arrived, the island had been a curiosity; a tropical paradise, deep in the dragonlands. One of a dozen islands in a chain, and all fiercely defended by the dragons, for they considered these islands sacred, for some reason that the sun had never explained. But this island was unique, for it had formed around an ancient volcano, and the others had merely formed when that volcano had erupted, eons before the shadow had first come into being.
The land of the island hadn’t changed, but the topography had. The lush jungle was nothing but burning charcoal now, still smoldering and clouding the sky with smoke. But even that smoke wasn’t enough to block the light of the sun, and so the island continued to burn.
Beyond that smoke, the shadow could still see the ancient volcano, and surprisingly, it was just as dead as when they had first arrived. The shadow had expected the heat to rekindle the volcano’s fire, for it to belch burning stone, for rivers of fire to be crawling down the slopes. But under the heat-shimmer of the burning air, there was only solid stone, charred black from the sun’s fury.
The deck shifted under the shadow’s hooves, and it stumbled towards the bow-rail, but not fast enough. The ship was melting, the metal skeleton coming apart as the world around it became a forge, and something below-decks had given way. The deck trembled as the superstructure buckled, and the deck tipped backwards as the stern of the ship began to sink.
The shadow was thrown a leg-length into the air, away from the bow-rail, and it came down with a slam that shook its whole body. Then as the ship continued to tilt, it started to slide back, then tumble over the uneven surface of the boiling deck. The world spun as it rolled and bounced towards the stern instead, and it could do nothing to stop or even slow that fall backwards, away from the sun.
Water slammed into the shadow like the world itself was trying to crush its body. Water that was boiling off into steam, but as the shadow tumbled deeper and sank below the surface, the water cooled very slightly. The shadow expected to come to a rest on the sandy surface of the bay, where the light was not so bright and it could peacefully rest in the gloom, but even that was denied. The water was churning as the ship below sank, and the surface boiled, and the water of the bay tossed and surged like a bathtub being rocked from side to side.
The shadow was swept out of the bay, away from the island, and the shallow ocean floor fell away into an inky abyss. It reached outwards for that peaceful darkness, hoping to fall deeper, away from the sun, but again it was denied. The water pulled the shadow upwards, back towards the surface, and then the water was ripped apart as the shadow was pulled into the air.
The weather around the island had gone mad, as seawater boiled in seconds, and the air itself was burned as fuel. Cyclones sucked and surged, pulling water up and launching it high into the air to balance the pressure, but so long as the sun was incinerating the world, that balance could never be struck.
The shadow was pulled upwards into the sky, flailing and helpless and hundreds of leg-lengths above the ocean, as water became steam and steam became acid, and then it was falling once more alongside the heavy droplets of acid into the same bay, where it was swept back out to the sea again.
Again and again. Nature was helpless against the heat of the sun, and the shadow only knew more and more surely that its mission was true and just. This weather couldn’t be corralled, couldn’t be controlled. It raged and foamed like a wild animal, feral and rabid. This had to end. The shadow had to put a stop to it.
The shadow landed in the bay again, and this time it stabbed its forelegs into the molten glass of the shore, anchoring itself as best it could. The tide surged past it, acid and boiling glass and ash all mixing into a wave that tried to rip it back into the surf, but the shadow refused to be taken once more.
As the tide receded, beginning the cycle anew, the shadow was left standing on what had once been a peaceful beach. Now it was naught but red glass, slowly oozing down the shore into the ocean like a bloody wound. The shadow had to yank its forelegs out of the burning sludge so that it could stumble forwards, or else it would be trapped here instead. It had no interest in becoming a statue of glass and steel and bone.
Every slow, staggering step ripped out a clump of molten glass, which melted anew as the burning air heated it to a boil. In the distance, the mountain continued down to the beach in a rocky ridge, and the stone was more stable than the sand would be. So that was where the shadow began to gallop, across the liquid sand, as the tide surged forwards again.
Another shadow caught its eye; a cave, high above the waterline. It was dark inside; cool relief from the firestorm of the world. The shadow changed course to make for the cave’s mouth, and leapt inside with a giddy joy, which sent it rolling and tumbling once more, down the hot stone, deeper into the cave.
Even the difference of a few hundred degrees made this cave bearable, compared to the world outside. The shadow felt relief, for the first time that it could remember, as it came to a stop in a puddle of hot, bubbling water in a natural pool. Molten glass sloughed from its hooves, and it kicked playfully to shake off the rest.
The cave was not truly dark, but it had deep shadows, which were banished for a few moments as red glass was flung all over the cave. Those embers quickly cooled, but some remained—and began to move. The shadow stilled itself as the cave grew dark, and the embers approached in sets of two.
Another shadow emerged from the cave’s gloom; a moving shadow, the remnants of a pony. The shadow wasn’t alone in its suffering; others had survived, or something close to surviving. Only two more, so the group numbered three shadows in total, but it was more than the absolute devastation that it had imagined.
Surely, the first shadow thought, it had been the last. The only survivor of this calamity, as the sun burned away the whole world. And the sun herself. And as the last two creatures left “alive” in the world, the first shadow had believed that it was its responsibility alone to slay the other, and end the destruction.
The two shadows collapsed onto the first, and it felt the embrace of a hug, for the first time in an eternity. This warmth was different; not the hot agony of a burning world, but the knowledge that they weren’t alone, that even as ruined as they were, they could still find friendship in the ashes.
It was impossible to say how long the embrace lasted. There was nothing else in the world that mattered, for it had burned away. They could all stay here, in the cool gloom of this cave, which sheltered them from the sun’s burning heat. And the three shadows eagerly relished that relief.
* * *
The heat was fading. It was an almost imperceptible shift, but the cave had begun to cool, and the glow from the cave’s mouth was beginning to dim. And the first shadow recalled their duty once more.
Gently, they pulled themselves away from the other two, who blinked at them in confusion. Where were they going? Were they leaving?
The first shadow didn’t go far; just to the mouth of the cave. It looked out at the world outside, to see what state it was in now.
The sun was larger, and yet it projected less heat. That burning red sky had dulled to a darker red, and the storm around the island was pressing back in, trying to flood away the ash with hard rain that swept down the slopes, the blackened ruins of the jungle, and across the cloudy glass beach, which had finally cooled enough to remain solid. The sea still roiled and fought, just as hard as ever; it had already taken several of the ships down below the waves. Five warped husks still struggled to float, too heavy to be pulled out to sea, but too sturdy to sink.
This world was bearable, but only just. The air itself no longer seemed to be on fire; while it was still akin to standing inside of an oven, and no living creature could survive this heat, shadows of living creatures could endure. So the first shadow grabbed in its mouth a long length of charcoal that had once been a branch, and dragged it back inside.
The other two shadows were relieved to see it return, but still confused by the first shadow’s actions. So, it would explain. None of them could speak, and even if they could, none of them could hear. The fire had taken all that away. But they could still see, and in the mouth of the cave, the first shadow began to drag the charcoal along the stone.
It drew the island, and the sun above it. It drew the sun again, on one of their ships, as the pony that she truly was. Then the first shadow wiped that away and drew her walking on the island. And then that was wiped away as well, and they drew the sun-pony within her own sun, above the island.
Finally, it dragged the charcoal stick in one final movement—a wide streak across both suns—and dropped the stick, to look back at the other two.
After a long few moments of consideration, one of the shadows nodded, and picked up the charcoal, adding their own streak across the suns. Then passed it to the other, who hesitantly did the same, burying her image under their covenant. They were in agreement: they needed to kill the sun. It was all they had left of the creatures they had once been.
* * *
There was little preparation to be done. The shadows had no belongings to pack, no equipment to repair or maintain, and no one else to whom they could say goodbye, in case they did not return. All they had was each other, and they relished that company as best they could, for as long as they could, allowing the world outside to cool just a few more hundred degrees.
The first shadow took the lead, and guided the other two from the cave. They seemed shocked by the state of the world now—all was blackened ash, and smoke had settled over the island like a caustic fog. But through it all, the shadows could still see the sun piercing through, and it was the only landmark they needed.
Past the solid glass beach, past the charcoal remnants of the jungle, the dry bed of a river could be followed up the slope. Mud had turned to solid, baked clay, and it had endured the heat more clearly than any path that had existed before the sun burned it all away. That riverbed led to what had been a small lake, now simply an open clay bowl, and the shadows made their way to the edge to climb out.
There was more jungle on the shore of the lake, though none of those descriptions applied to what remained now. But the charcoal-black stumps were all blasted away from a central location in this section of jungle; a crater that rivaled the size of the lake from which the shadows had emerged. In the center lay a massive skeleton, and though the bones were gray from the heat, they had yet to burn away.
The massive skeleton had, until recently, been a living dragon. It must have died in mid-air, and then fallen here, slamming into the ground with such force that it knocked down trees for hundreds of leg-lengths. It had been flying towards the sun, judging from where the skull still indicated. It was known that dragons could survive temperatures that no other creature could; they bathed in lava for fun, stone that was so hot that it had turned to liquid. Only the fire of another dragon was hot enough to burn their scales.
But the sun had burned so hot as to end this dragon’s life in mid-flight, even as it flew headlong towards it. The creature had lived for centuries, perhaps millennia, but the sun had killed it in seconds. Now all that was left were these bones to mark its passing.
The shadows stared at it for so long, questioning whether they could even complete their mission. If the sun could do this to a dragon, how could they find the strength to slay her?
Eventually, the first shadow shook itself out of those thoughts. No, they had to continue. Even the dragons weren’t strong enough to defeat her. They weren’t strong enough to even approach. But the shadows yet lived, when no one else had, so the duty fell to them.
Upwards they continued, climbing the charred slopes of the mountain. As they climbed higher, the heat of the sun grew more intense, and they found yet more evidence that it had burned even hotter previously. The stone here showed signs of having melted, just like the sand of the beach and the steels of the ships. But it was cooled now, and so it did not deter them.
There were more dragons, as they climbed higher. Skeletons burned to ash, lying dead on the slopes from what had to have been a final, desperate push to reclaim their sacred island. The first shadow counted four in total, and there were surely more scattered across the island that they simply wouldn’t find on the way to the summit.
As the heat of the sun above grew even more intense, the stone under their hooves became uncomfortably hot, and they began to see more recent evidence of fires. Ash that had been soil still smoldered, and wild winds blew smoke down the slopes into their faces. A living creature would have choked on the poisoned air here, or would have been blinded as their eyes filled with ash, but the shadows were too damaged to be waylaid by such petty needs.
The mountain grew brighter as they approached the lip of the volcano, and the light of the sun would have been blinding as they came so close to the celestial object above, if their eyes could still be burned by the light. The sun could have been no further than a dozen miles above the summit of the mountain, far closer than it ever should have been, and the great dull red mass loomed above like an overripe apple hanging from a tree.
Here, finally, there were signs that the mountain was being forced awake, at least on the surface. The stone here was half-melted, and it dribbled down into pools of magma inside the mouth of the volcano like saliva. At the center of the crater, a temple had been built, and though the stone bricks had begun to sag as they deformed under the constant heat of the sun, it still stood.
That, the shadows knew, was where the sun could be found. They wasted little time sight-seeing, and galloped down the slope towards the open door of the temple, eager to plunge into the hot darkness and find relief from the unbearable boiling light outside.
The temple’s interior was large; the structure had been built by dragons, and the space within was large enough to accommodate one that had lived for centuries. But all that could be seen inside now was a pile of charred wooden debris that might once have been a wagon, judging by the general shape, and the metal that had melted into puddles on the stone.
The first shadow rummaged through the ashes and found, to their surprise, a few sets of burned armor, and some damaged weapons. These must have belonged to the guards that escorted the sun here, and the enchantments to maintain the equipment must have kept them relatively intact, even after the bodies of the guards themselves had long been burned to ash. That equipment would serve the shadows instead.
They all had experience wearing armor, and though the metal buckles and plates were hot against their bones, they were able to pull the barding on easily enough. They fit loosely, as the armor was designed for ponies who still had the luxury of flesh, but they simply tightened the straps as much as they could, and it worked well enough. The spears had to be forced into the deformed mounts on the armor, but before long, all three shadows were armed and armored.
They felt stronger than they ever had before. They felt as though they could actually do it. The sun was so close, she had to be, and they could finally end all of this madness.
The first shadow led them into the center of the circle carved into the stone, and blue light illuminated a series of runes set into the floor. Then the circle of stone was dislodged from the floor, and began to descend into the depths of the volcano—a magical elevator, large enough across that a dragon could ride down into the chamber below.
Hundreds of leg-lengths below the burning light of the surface, cool air rushed upwards to greet them, and it felt frigid after the oven-like heat of the world. They shivered in the cold, as the light faded and was replaced with comforting darkness.
The elevator descended into a grand chamber that had once been a lava pocket of some sort. The circular room must have been half the size of the crater above in length and width, but it was difficult to be sure, as the edges of the room were shrouded in darkness. The only source of light in the grand chamber came from the center, where a small bonfire had been assembled and a fire lit, and a single sword with a coiled blade had been stabbed through the flames into the black stone floor. A spiral of ash swirled outwards from the campfire, forming the symbol of the sun in ten equal ridges.
And finally, they saw the sun herself. She looked so small in the massive room, and they would have missed her entirely were she not sitting by the fire. Her white fur was illuminated by the light of the fire, and her mane was a dull red, matching the surface of the celestial object above.
It was time. They were here. The elevator came to a stop, and the shadows disembarked, slowly approaching the sun at the center of the room.
She only looked up when they approached. She still had flesh, though they were marred by crow’s-feet that were deep enough to give the impression that she had been unable to sleep for millennia. When she looked at them, they could see that there was the same fire in her eyes as those of the shadows; just a spark, bright enough to be visible.
She asked a question, though none of the shadows could hear it, and they did not hesitate in their approach. Finally, the sun realized she was in danger, and stood in alarm as the shadows spread outwards around her in a semi-circle, spears raised and ready to attack.
The shadow to her right struck first; it leapt forward and stabbed her in the side with the spear mounted to the armor. In an instant, there was a flash of light and heat, so bright as to blind even the shadows. When they looked again, the shadow that had attacked the sun was simply gone, and ashes were scattered from where they had stood.
The sun was screaming silently, and gasping in pain, as something about her nature seemed suddenly wrong. Her pony shape was distorting, warping around the sunfire that made up her being. She screamed again, and a mass of pure energy whipped out in a random direction, disintegrating the ash where it struck. She stumbled away from her two remaining attackers, and liquid light poured from her eyes to spatter across the stone under her hooves.
After a moment, she seemed to recover herself, and the shape of a pony re-asserted itself around her light. She glanced between the two remaining shadows with fear and sadness, and for the first time, the first shadow hesitated.
This felt...wrong. But the sun was burning the world, and it would only stop when she died.
No. They had to do it. They had to kill the sun.
The first shadow stepped forward, and readied its spear, while the sun’s horn ignited in golden magic. A matching aura wrapped around the sword stabbed into the bonfire, and ripped it free, so that she could wield it to defend herself. Her lips moved as she spoke, but the world of the shadows had long been silenced.
Begging for her life, perhaps? Pleading with them not to kill her? To forget what she had done to the world? To allow her to continue?
Whatever she said, it didn’t matter. The two remaining shadows leapt forward, and the sun struck with her sword in a downwards slash that pushed the first shadow back. The other shadow struck true, and there was another flash of light as the sun was stabbed.
For a moment, she bled like a mortal pony, and staggered back, facing the wound away from them—but then there was another flash as her golden ichor escaped once more, leaping out and splashing across the ashes like liquid fire. She screamed silently as the room trembled, and her body shuddered in a way that no physical creature could. It felt like the world itself was shaking, as she struggled to exist within it. Her sunfire was attempting to escape, and every wound the shadows inflicted gave it another route to abandon her flesh.
The sun spat into the ashes, her bloody spit glowing golden as it silently sizzled under their hooves. The first shadow leapt forward again, hoping she was distracted, but instead the sun advanced, and the sword swept upwards to shatter the spear. Then the sun slammed her body into the first shadow, shoulder-checking them and tossing them onto their back.
Her flesh burned as it touched the first shadow, even just for a second. They felt pain, for the first time that they could remember. Not the ambient burning of the air above, the searing heat of the metal ship or the boiling glass. Agony poured through their bones as their body became more real, in some way that the shadow couldn’t understand. As though everything they’d experienced until now was but a dream, a mere delusion.
The sun didn’t stop, but the first shadow had been disarmed, and so her attention turned back to the other shadow. They charged, lowering their head as they kicked ash into their air with each hoof-step, and their spear was pointed towards the sun’s heart.
The sun simply stepped to the side, and her face contorted into a feral snarl as she stabbed the sword into the shadow’s side. The armor did nothing to protect them; the coiled blade of the sword stabbed through it like paper, and the shadow tumbled forward, and collapsed in a heap into the smoldering ashes of the campfire. In a single smooth motion, the sun ripped the sword free from the shadow’s spine, and whipped it around in an arc that pointed the tip downwards.
The sword was stabbed downwards, through the shadow, to once more find a resting place within the fire. It pinned them to the ground, and they squirmed in the fire, trying to escape, for only a second. Then the sun’s golden magic burned brighter, around her horn and the sword she held, so bright that it hurt to look at.
There was a pulse of magic that shook the room, that sapped the strength of the first shadow. And now it was the only shadow remaining, because the other shadow’s form was dissolving into ashes. It wasn’t burning; it looked as though the magic that had kept them alive was being torn out, and the truth of their existence was being forced back upon them. They were no longer a shadow of a pony; they were merely a skeleton wearing a set of stolen armor. The bones should have long crumbled into ash and dust, and so they did, until there was nothing left but a pile of ash in the bonfire.
It was over, the first shadow, the only shadow, now knew. They had survived for so long, but their mission was doomed from the beginning. They had wounded the sun, but they never could have defeated her. So the shadow lay there, unmoving and defeated, as the sun turned to face them.
The shadow had expected to feel that coiled sword plunge into their barrel as well, so that they could be burned away by the sun’s magic. But she left the sword in the fire, when she saw that the shadow had given up fighting. Instead, her golden magic dimmed, and she took a few unsteady steps towards them.
Her being rippled. The shape of a pony shimmered, unreal and impossible, as the boiling sunfire of the goddess fought to tear apart the illusion. Perhaps outside, above the volcano, the celestial object above was mirroring her, rippling and straining to escape itself, masses of sunfire leaping and roiling across the surface.
All the fight left her, as the pony-shaped illusion collapsed next to the shadow. Just as she had when they first entered the chamber, she just looked miserable. Her eyes turned back to the dim bonfire, and the shadow stared into it as well, hoping to find what she saw in those embers.
The shadow had desired peace. Cool and calm darkness, relief from the burning light of the sun. And when the sun would not relent, it knew that it had to kill the sun. Just to make the heat, the dull ache of the fire, the unbearable light, to make it all stop.
But here, as the sun’s breathing slowed, as she regained control over her body, and flesh and fur became more real than the unquenchable fire, the room dimmed. Once more, there was only the light of the bonfire, and the golden ichor that streamed from her eyes and left glowing trails down her face. The rest of the chamber was cool and dark.
It was peaceful now. There was no pain. There was only a little light, a little heat. That was acceptable.
And so the shadow finally found rest.
Author's Note
The chapter title (and the first line of the description) is inspired by Kill the Sun, by Rusty Cage. However, the actual song for this chapter/story is Mountains Made of Steam, by Silver Mt Zion. Both are excellent songs, but the latter fits the overall tone much better.
It amuses me that, for a contest where "Dialogue" is one of the judging rubrics, I chose to submit a story which has no spoken dialogue whatsoever. And which so completely subverts the theme of a tropical island so thoroughly!
Anyway, despite what people might think upon reading this story, I'm actually doing a lot better emotionally. I'm probably going to be moving soon, though it's dependent on getting a job in the new location inside of two weeks. So I'm glad I got this story out the door before I left!
As always, send thanks to my pre-readers, Prince-Nightfire93, Citizen, SisterHorseteeth, and Non Uberis.
