Demons of the Desert

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.

Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

The Coyote

I was awoken by the setting sun and a throbbing pain in my side. I opened up my eyes to find myself laying down, face up to the end of day sunlight and the growing night sky. I picked up my head to look around, but it hurt too much to even move. My head fell back and I gasped at the sudden pain. I felt sand in my mane and hooves, but my right side was numb. I gently looked around without picking my head up and I first found out that even turning my head to the right a smidgen created a pain worse than hellfire. So, I gently turned my head to the left and found out I was in a shallow hole, dug from the sand of the desert. I had no idea where I was and I shivered from the coming chill of the desert night.

It’s funny how so many ponies don’t know that night is about as deadly a time as day out in the desert. Most ponies think it’s burning every day, which by their standards it is, but they all believe that night in the desert is warm and relaxing. None of them really know that it gets below freezing out here in the San Palomino at night and they never expect that the predators of the desert are all very active at night. Predators that would naturally never attack a pony during the day roamed the desert at night, willing to catch anything they could. Including one stranded, pain-filled foal.

However, to get out of this hole, I’d need to fight all my pain and stand. But to do this, I’d need all my limbs to respond to me, and for some reason, my right side was still numb to me. Also, it felt like the cold of the night was coming in incredibly fast tonight. I wasn’t sure why. But everything cleared from my mind as I focused on turning my head to the right to see what was wrong with my leg. Inch by inch, I fought excruciating pain until I experienced the greatest pain of all. As I finally saw what was wrong with my right leg, I screamed until I fainted. My right leg was gone. All that remained was a dirty, bloody stump.

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Hours later, I awoke. It was strange because it felt like I was still asleep, as drained and hurt as I was. However, I knew I awoke for a reason. Without making a sound, I listened to what woke me up. I shivered in the cold of the night, all silent, until I heard it again. It was faint, but I knew it was what woke me up. A solitary call of a coyote hung in the desert air as the full moon shone her light down upon my open grave. My heart lazily raced as I heard it moments later, closer to me than before. Then again minutes later.

“It’s coming for me.” I told myself mentally, becoming just as scared as I was hurt. But as the calls came closer and closer, I became more and more scared, until I realized I couldn’t do anything. I was in so much pain and I was so weak right now, I couldn’t even run or fight my coming doom. I felt my eyes grow hot with tears and my heart break as I heard the call again, much closer this time. Finally, by the time I heard the footsteps of the creature on the sand and its abominable sniffing, my tears dried. I couldn’t do anything and crying wouldn’t do anything for me. I would die here alone and beaten. I suddenly got extremely angry, knowing I would never be able to save my loved ones. I pictured the evil stallion, the boss who killed Midday in my mind. As the coyote howled, its shape becoming visible right above me, I howled along with it, mixing its lonesome call with one of pure anger and hatred.

“Oh. That’s quite the call mi’ijo.” A smooth voice spoke in my mind. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised when I looked up to the coyote looking down at me with his yellow eyes that glowed in the cold night. I shivered again, but glared back at him defiantly.

“Ain’t yah here tah kill me?” I asked, anger dripping off of my tongue.

“I do not kill.” The coyote said. “I only help those to their afterlife. But it seems like you have many regrets, young one. Your cry told me all.”

“But what am I supposed to do?!?” I shouted at him, my tears running down my face and making the sand at the base of my head wet. “Ah’m beaten, bloodied, missin’ a buckin’ leg, and left fer dead in the desert. I don’t even know where Ah am!”

The coyote kept looking at me in silence with the same stoic yet interested look on his face.

“Also, them ponies that did this tah me are still in mah town, keepin’ my loved ones captive, an’ probably raising Cain! Hell, Ah’m only a foal anyways! What can Ah do?!?” I vented my frustration, anger, and sadness mixing in my voice as I cried harder and harder.

“I can only help you upon your way hijo. I cannot make your decisions for you. Yet I can still warn you.” The coyote said to me evenly and calmly, somehow making my tears slow. I looked up to him with hope and saw the moon reflected in his eyes.

“There are dos caminos. Two paths. One decision you must make.” He said, walking around my shallow grave. “Un camino will lead you down the path of safety and rest, one where all your pain will cease and you will find peace eventually. The other camino, it is full of pain. It will change you as a pony and you may never find true peace, but you will see your friends again and you will have the power to fight for them.”

“However, mi’ijo, be warned. Both caminos will lead to your death. But now is the time for you to choose one and one alone.” The coyote said as he stood over me from where he first appeared. I thought over what he said and felt the pain in my body. I would like for all this pain to end, for all this suffering to disappear, for the cold to become pure warmth…but my anger washed over me. How dare I think about only myself when my friends were still in trouble! Screw peace and rest! I needed to save them, I needed to get up out of this god-damn hole and be useful!

“Please,” I said to the coyote, my voice becoming a raspy whisper. “Give me the strength to save my friends. I need to see them again. I need to save them from that…that monster.” I said with the picture of that stallion’s face imprinted in my mind like a flaming brand of hatred. I needed to save them, whatever the cost to myself.

The coyote looked up to the moon and howled once. He took in a deep breath and looked back to me. “So the path is chosen. El camino del héroe. It may be filled with pain, héroe and your fellow ponies may only know you as a devil, but you will have the power to do what must be done. I can only give you this power and guide you from time to time. Be calm héroe, for your time is to come.”

He howled at me, making a pain worse than that of even a lost limb scream through my body. I felt my soul rip from my body and be cast out into the sands of the desert. Then all of a sudden I was in nothing but darkness.

The coyote appeared underneath me, howling up to the dark sky that I was in, and the stars started to move. Each one galloped towards me until I saw they were not balls of plasma and distant light, but each and every one was the soul of a pony that had died with regrets. I heard them whisper their regrets to me: “I never loved another pony, I never achieved anything, I never told her how I felt, I never knew my children, I never helped another pony,” and I felt a burning power course through me as their souls melded into mine. Suddenly, I heard the coyote’s howl once again and I was pulled down to the ground, a storm appearing in the sky in my wake. The howl forced the sands of the desert to swirl around me in a sandstorm that would rival any hurricane. Then lighting from the storm above joined into the storm, supercharging it and allowing for the sandstorm to create its own lighting, making my tomb in the center an inferno. I kept on hearing the pain and regrets of the dead soul in my mind as lighting coursed through my body, setting it aflame while sand scoured me, tearing me limb from limb and sanding me down worse than the mesas they so desperately abused. I screamed and screamed and screamed, the pain never subsiding, never leaving me for a moment, always tormenting me in my mind and in my body. I soon could take no more, my coat stained orange-brown from the mix of sand and my blood, and my mane blood red from the tearing of my mind.

Soon, even though it seemed like eons to me, the sandstorm stopped and I fell from the sky, to the desert floor, at the base of the coyote’s paws. I lied there, breathing heavily as I tried to let the pain seep away, but it wouldn’t subside even though the storm had. I screamed once and a large bolt of lightning arced across the sky. Then the coyote looked at me once and I saw all of eternity reflected in his eyes. I kept looking into his eyes as he lowered his head to my throat and bit into my neck, stopping the pain in my body and causing me to black out.

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My screaming pain woke me up, well… screaming. I sat up, covered in sweat and sore from the coyote’s machinations. However, my scream faded as I fell to my right side, unbalanced from the loss of my limb. My scream turned into a yelp as I fell hard onto a woven mat. I looked at my shoulder, now covered in bandages and a strangely calming aromatic poultice, and I rubbed it gently. I also absorbed my surroundings, no longer a shallow open grave in the desert, but a warm, triangular structure with the remnants of a fire next to my mat-bed. I also lifted up the thick blanket that covered me with a tentative hoof.

Suddenly, a bison with a strange bag-like necklace rushed into the structure from a flap opening, looking scared and worried at the same time. I jumped back, shocked at his sudden entrance, but he sighed and seemed relieved. He walked over to me and sat next to me calmly, snorting as he maneuvered me around with his front hooves, turning me until I sat straight up and my shoulder-stump was facing towards him. I felt him undo the wrappings and check my wound, making me grimace and reach a hoof over to my shoulder. The bison saw my extending hoof and smacked it away.

“Hey!” I said as he prodded my shoulder again, making me twinge. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and retied the bandages.

“How...” he started to say.

“How!” I answered back, cutting him off.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Shut up you moron. Don’t you know it’s rude to cut somepony off when they’re talking? And all that ‘how’ stuff is all racist bullshit.” The bison reprimanded.

“Oh. Sorry.” I replied, blushing.

“As I was asking, how do you feel? You hungry? Tired? Feel like walking?”

I licked my lips. For someone who was in bandages and had just gone through a night from hell, I surprisingly felt good. “Ah’d like to do the last one please. But…ah…Ah could use some help. Ah’m jest have a mite a’ trouble walkin’ on three legs.”

“I’d be pleased to help you.” The well-mannered bison said. “However, I’d like to take you to my Chief, for he’d like to talk to you... as would I, but that will be done with him.” He said, extending his hoof to me, helping me off of the ground. I stood up shakily and almost fell down, but the bison rushed to my right, keeping me up by the force of his body. “Like a calf…” I heard him say under his breath as we journeyed out of the teepee (as it was the only structure native bison used) and into the outside desert.

The mid-morning sunlight shone brightly on my eyes and blinked away the glare as we walked around the bison village. There were many teepees set up in a pattern that seemed to follow along the contour of the land. The bison that were awake about, which was most of the tribe, looked at me and whispered things to each other in native bison. I hoped the things they said about me weren’t bad.

“Ah never did ask yer name, did Ah?” I said as I saw an extra-large teepee, with decorations all over it, showing it was somepony of power and the only one who deserved such gaudiness was the Chief. For some reason, I started to get worried as we got closer to the teepee.

“My name is Sandcoat, the shaman of our tribe.”

“Nice tah meet yah. Ah’m…”

“No, you are not.” The bison said cutting me off, making me frown and look at him oddly. He looked at me with all seriousness and said “You will understand after we talk to the Chief.” We approached the tent, Sandcoat said a few words in bison and then he swung both of us into the teepee.

Inside the smoky teepee sat a large bison brave, his thick horns scrawling out of his curly fur and forming two deadly points of keratin. He had dark brown eyes and his head was almost completely covered in an intricate headdress formed of wild gems and feathers of different birds. Underneath his dark eyes were three stripes of paint, the top one swinging back and curving down to his neck, underlining his eye sockets and making him looked all the more perceiving. His size alone intimidated me and the scowl he wore on his face as Sandcoat and I entered certainly didn’t help. He said something to Sandcoat in bison to which Sandcoat answered back in bison. Then he turned to me.

“Hello pony.” He said slowly, as if the words he spoke were heavy. “I am Chief Ironhorns, Leader of the Shaking Earth tribe. Now, who are you?”

“Mah name is…”

Again, I was cut off by Sandcoat. “You already know his name chief. However, I think he does not.”

“What?” I said aloud, confused by the shaman’s words. I might be missing a limb, but that didn’t mean I forgot who I was.

“Look.” Sandcoat said, grasping a hoof mirror from the chief and holding it up in front of my face. I looked at it in surprise for a moment, but then I fell backwards in true surprise. In the mirror, I looked at my reflection like always, expecting my dark brown eyes, tan coat, and black mane to be staring back. But now I felt like I truly didn’t know who I was. My reflection showed a strange pony, with an orange-red coat like that of the dirty sand and mesas of the desert, a blood-red mane that shimmered like a moving flame, and two yellow, predatory eyes that showed the eternity of the desert in them. I realized that the events of the night before were not dreams, as I must have thought subconsciously, but true events. Yet, my body wasn’t harmed from the process…and then again, I was changed. I could feel it inside of me as I looked into my hunter’s eyes.

“Other than your change in appearance,” Chief Ironhorns said, interrupting my thoughts of amazement. “There is something else you should know. Last night, you died.”

“Wha…what?” I said, my gaze torn from the mirror and to the chief and shaman. I looked for some note of humor in their faces, but bother were stoic and serious. “That’s impossible.” I said.

“In the desert, nothing is impossible.” Sandcoat said, turning away from me and gazing into the heart of the small fire while he hoofed his medicine bag around his neck. “Last night, when I was tending to you, you died. Then, later on, you came back to us. There is only one explanation, and even that is hard to believe.”

Before I could speak, he continued. “I once heard of a bison in your exact same predicament, lost in the desert, almost dead. He did fall to his death and his soul was taken by the coyote like all the rest, but for some reason, the coyote lead his soul back to his body, changing him in the process. He came back from the dead and became a tool of the desert, a weapon of all the souls that have been scorned or killed in cold blood. He became the demon of the desert, the Chindi.”

He turned away from the fire and stared directly into my eyes. “That is who you are, Chindi. You are a demon, with powers that even I cannot comprehend. There are only two questions, one of which you can tell us the answer to now. The other, you will have to find out for yourself. So, why were you chosen? What is your past, Chindi?” Sandcoat asked me. The chief looked to me with an interest that he tried to hide under a stoic grimace.

So, I told them about how everypony knew me as Winchester, how I once lived in Sandy River, before strangers came in, killed my friends and took them hostage, and ended up leaving me for dead. It was hard telling them about the coyote, as a ghost of the pain from the night thudded inside of me and strange voices on the edge of hearing whispered inside my head. It was even harder wrapping my head around the fact that I had died. It was such a strange idea, thinking about my own demise and then coming back from it. But as I told my tale, Sandcoat and Chief Ironhorns seemed to sit back in understanding.

“Chindi, you are still young.” The Chief said. “You will stay with us and we will teach you the ways of the bison. Since the spirits helped you, we will as well, but as the coyote said, your time will come. Do not rush headlong into things like revenge. It is true that you have power now, but none of us know how to use it. Bide your time and become strong, so that we will be able to fight your aggressors together.”

“But…Ah…” I started to say, tears tinging my eyes for no apparent reason. I tried to stop, but I was torn between frustration, happiness, and sadness. “Thank you.” I said finally settling on something that would be sufficient. Sandcoat came over to me and picked me and placed me on his back, saying something to the Chief in bison as he walked out the teepee with me.

“He does no hate you, young one.” Sandcoat said as he carried me back to his teepee. “He is only afraid. Not of you, but of your future, of his tribe’s future. You must understand. You have all the potential to change the desert, to change the world. He is only afraid, because he is hopeful.”

As my tears started to dry, I looked up to the cloudy sky, a rare sight in the desert.

Sandcoat spoke, his voice being mixed in my mind with a cacophony of spirit voices all saying the same thing.

“You are our hope.”