Sounds of Silence

I trotted among the charred remnants of civilization. One last time.

It took months that stretched to years. But I did it.

I did it.

I ended war.

Skull impaled on spear. Grover VI, I hardly knew ya'. Should have watched your wingward side. Archon of your Griffonian Empire saw a developing threat and made a move.

The skies are silent.

Hellquill's Purple Plague hit all birds hard, from the sentient to the so-saccharine-sweet songbirds.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

Songbirds of a different type prospered in the back alleys of Wingbardy, spreading wings and pleasure in turn until Beakolini outlawed vice and found out at the points of several spears and hangmare's nooses that vice was precisely what Wingbardians preferred.

Hellquill, oh Hellquill. So brilliant and devious. So hate-filled and weak. Your immune systems didn't defend you from your own weapon. Ponies in the Riverlands perished, but it was griffons who bore the brunt of your invention. Should have stockpiled more gas masks for your families.

Armies aren't too happy when they realize that everything they're fighting for perished because of governmental incompetence.

Hellquill never had a heart. And apparently a good head isn't so helpful when it's separated from its rioting military vessel.

The Riverlands--home to ponies and diamond dogs fractured into divers states no more. The dogs, seeing an opportunity, seized power and took on the role of master for once. But slaves don't make the most willing or competent soldiers--even when they're fighting for their lives. And the dogs weren't used to strategy. They blundered time and time again and when it was too late, my army was too large for anycreature to stop.

Across the ocean, the Equestrians doomed themselves.

The chittering oppression of the changelings became too much for the marvelous mares leading the resistance.

And Starlight Glimmer dropped a time bomb.

It was localized--contained.

It killed her and the Changeling's Queen Chrysalis. And it brought Cosmos, Discord's old flame, to the front. Millions were slaughtered. Discord, the chaos beast who fled Equestria at the outset of the Great War had feared that creature. Where Discord had tortured, she slayed. As powerful as Discord had been, he couldn't stomach the sight of blood. Cosmos feasted upon it. Ponies were segmented for pleasure. Until I came to set them free.

At least, that action of mine was right.

I used up so much of my magic fighting that eldritch power.

But it was right--even though it meant we all fell apart.

Everything fell apart.

It had to fall apart. Even without that drain on resources--time would have eventually presented its insidious decay. Perhaps I could have, in time, found an alternative, and perhaps not. Entropy is Queen.

Everything always falls apart.

We're mortals.

And Cosmos is back in the stars--where she belongs.

Yaks had already perished in a grand battle charge against Chrysalis' polar bear allies--pushing them into the sea and holding them underwater with yak strength--their much-less massive frames nevertheless pulling down the bears for longer than their breath could bear.

Of course, it could have been the bears' armor that sealed their fates. But, I like to remember the yaks for their resilience... and what I write becomes history. So, yak endurance will be remembered forever.

Olenian deer, such a diminished host as had survived the war, also survived the time bomb as they languished in concentrated love camps--feeding changelings with their dwindling love supplies until King Thorax liberated them on Chrysalis' death.

They rose against a rather confused benevolent Thorax and strangled him to death... and then were set upon.

King Sombra returned in the Crystal Empire. Desperate misguided ponies freed him--seeking a savior against Chrysalis. Of course the crystal ponies were not so foolish as to make the play... it was Equestrian refugees who prompted his return... and it was Equestrian refugees who paid the greatest price, for Sombra remembered it had been Equestrians who had imprisoned and bested him. He could never countenance such opposition. Their shadows hung them high.

For a while, the dark King ruled and consolidated and worked against the changelings, growing and buttressing his territory. But he miscalculated in thinking shadows could do anything against the inevitability of death. My army burgeoned with the incorporeal. So, instead of rising again, he dissipated.

Smoke and dust he had been for much of his existence and to that disassembly, he returned.

Nightmare Moon had, of course, returned by that time. Her cult arose after the time bomb. She'd spurned Sombra's entreaties of marriage and alliance, however. Thus, she stood alone against my forces. My undead overwhelmed her, corpses piling higher and higher while a fleet of vamponies struck her down. And she was devoured.

She tasted like chicken: poisoned chicken.

I used a spell to purge that final stratagem of hers.

But perhaps the miscalculation was my downfall. I had thought I could obtain great power by incorporating her negative energy. Instead, it left a hole inside.

My magic was never the same.

And the sun never rose.

Daybreaker would have been my greatest challenge. But the time bomb ended her in a unique way. She was caught mid-change. For, Daybreaker was Princess Celestia's enraged aspect--a long-suppressed id that could end the world. Would that Celestia have ended this world's suffering. If she had, many would have been spared the famine and suffering of subsequent years.

Starlight had freed Celestia from the dungeons. Chrysalis had confronted the twain. Words had been said. Trixie's torture had been revealed. And Starlight responded to the goading and avenged her friend. Celestia tried to stop her and, in stress and anger, she broke day--burning Canterlot to the ground and shaking the soil for thousands of kilometers in every direction. Tsunamis raged across the ocean, swamping even the deserted shores of New Mareland. And then the bomb went off.

Nova Griffonia, hundreds of kilometers to the north, shook from tremors of the time bomb and Celestia's daybreaking. Their last remaining spires collapsed and their elected ruler perished.

Pirates ruled for all of the few weeks it took for my ships to dock, frighten them to the high seas, and take advantage of the chaos and madness to bring it closure and peace.

It was a mercy to eliminate the multiethnic murder-pit griffonia had descended into. Ponies against griffons against polar bears against changeling refugees. Those who had been friends and who should have been friends turned against each other in argument over Celestia's final betrayal--or attempt at salvation--none could agree. Nopony who had been in the room where it happened had survived. Canterlot was gone. Ponies could not brook blasphemy against their beloved Princess. Griffons pursued order above all. And so, the great union failed.

But in my army, all serve shoulder to shoulder. I like to think I preserved some Nova Griffonian spirit. It had been a surprisingly accepting kind and intriguing country when I first sojourned to the Dread League to practice my necromancy. It has been so long since I have been young and idealistic and still had all my flesh.

Alas poor Yorick, I knew him, you know. I found his skull rotting in a field, beyond even my powers to raise as an eternal follower. The griffon had been a great mentor, shielding me from secret police hunting international criminals. Yorick had done much for me, and I'd been unable to return his largess. At least, I hadn't killed him. No spire struck him. His downfall had been a great club, likely wielded by a polar bear. Many of those served in the police. Yorick's underground crimes had probably done him in. One smuggling job too many, either moving illicit goods or illicit people. He'd benefited from the war, I discovered through spies. But although he grew fat, those boons had brought more attention, and his demise. One who had soared so high had never been buried or consumed. His sundered body had been left--preserved by magic--as an example.

I found his vessel after walls had crumbled--by serendipity. Or, was my discovery by acts of Fate... or God. Is there an afterlife?

I asked the spirits. But alas, the only spirits in my army are detached from souls and if there is an afterlife, these spirits would know nothing of it--the only ones with knowledge are those who had decamped to there.

The life I created..., it was but a facsimile.

But while the facsimile lasted, it was good.

It was what Equestria should have been.

I wish.

I wish it could have lasted forever.

My knees collapsed, my femurs split, my hooves split.

I am Rosa Maledicta--the cure to the sick madness of war.

We were supposed to live forever: undead creatures one and all.

Equal.

But friendship was magic.

And creatures without minds cannot spread friendship while they decay.

And all things decay.

My army sustained itself for years on residual friendship and spells.

But preservative spells are powerful and difficult.

Things fall apart.

Again.

And again.

And again.

I cannot move any more.

What I write will crumble to dust.

Creatures from another world, another time, another place.... Please take some lesson from this.

I shouldn't have done it alone.

If you plan to end war... by raising an army of undead. Don't just equip it. Don't just train it. Don't just make it large. Build it with friends. Keep them alive. Keep them happy so you can, at the end of a difficult day, rest and recharge. You need allies upon whose friendship you can feast.

Because, friendship is magic.