Ashes and Dust

I cried. For the longest time I just looked out upon what remained of the village and cried. Only one day. How many were dead? Hundreds? Thousands? Ponyville was gone. Nothing remained of the town but a desolate crater spotted with the remnants of the few homes that hadn't been uprooted by the fierce storm. The only proof that this place had been inhabited by hundreds of ponies just twenty-four hours ago were the ashes of the fallen. The soft wind carried the gray specks throughout town before they drifted off into the bleak sky, finally leaving behind this nightmarish town in search of a more peaceful resting place.

What was left? Canterlot had been obliterated, Manehatten razed to the ground, and Fillydelphia was probably still burning. Only one day and they were all wiped off the map. The most prominent cities in Equestria shouldn't have fallen so easily. It all seemed like a horrible dream, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't wake up.

I began to walk through town, wandering aimlessly without any particular destination in mind. Across the hills of ash and dead grass, the old site of Sweet Apple Acres was no longer a collection of proud trees full of ripe red apples, but rather a field of rotten trunks sticking out of the colorless earth like fingers of the dead buried under that very ash. The old farmstead was partially intact: the frame and walls were mostly together, though the roof had caved in trapping any ponies unlucky enough to be taking refuge there. The thought that the bodies of Big Mac, Granny Smith, and even little Apple Bloom could be buried somewhere inside was unbearable.

But there was the cellar! I rushed towards the other side of the old farmhouse, knowing that there was a chance. Maybe, just maybe, they had all taken refuge within the old apple cellar before the storm got too severe. The girls were smart; they surely would have hid in here until the worst of it had passed. I flung open the doors hoping to find some sign that the old cellar had been used, but found only a room full of dust and fallen debris. The quakes caused by those final explosions seemed to have taken a toll; this place wasn't exactly built to withstand the kind of destruction that had taken place here.

I left the Apple farm, knowing I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, and slowly made my way towards what used to be the center of Ponyville. Around the town, buildings still standing were quite scarce and those remaining had been extensively damaged by fire.

I laid down in the ash. Looking at my hooves, I could still see the red stains on my forehooves. No amount of ash could cover up the red on my normally cyan hide. The fur seemed ruffled and choppy from dangerous flight and vicious crashes. I couldn’t live with this, it was my fault this all happened.

“Why’d you have to do this, huh?” I moaned to myself. “Just had to be the best…sniff… no matter what. Now everything is gone. Listened to it… let it take control…thought it would be okay… it was only one day…”

“Does it even matter anymore? Does anything? Why would it… let me remember… the pain…?” I choked back a sob, “Why am I still alive?”

Next I found my way to another familiar spot, a place I could always go to when I was feeling blue, Sugarcube Corner. I combed through the rubble remembering all the good times. Pinkie had always thrown the craziest parties; no matter the circumstance that mare could always turn it into an occasion for cake and festivities. The gray ash sifted between my hooves spilling out onto the floor of the now shattered confectionery store. A breeze swept up, taking the ash to unknown crevasses in the earth.

Only one day.

I couldn’t stop crying. Tears fell from my face before landing to be soaked up by the brittle ground. The knapsack on my back collected ash as it softly landed on the earth like snow. I couldn’t help but think about the two survivors I had come across earlier that day. The first place I returned to after regaining consciousness was here. Could never leave Ponyville hanging...

I had seen the horrors, watched as ponies were slaughtered by the perfect storm that I had created. When ponies would look at me they would see nothing more than a monster unfit to exist peacefully amongst other life. And they were right; I was a curse to this place now.

I couldn't recognize most of the dead. Many of the bodies had been charred by the fires, surely making their deaths excruciatingly painful. Most others were carried off by the storm, probably lying somewhere miles away by now. The first survivor I found was Lyra, curled underneath Bon Bon, who had sheltered her loved one with her own body. Unconscious, I carried her to the only place I knew that was still standing, Appleoosa. As soon as they saw me, the shots started. I left Lyra by the gate, and left as quickly as I could. Luck kept me from getting killed.

Because I was so damn lucky.

As far as I knew, only one other survived. Stayed here as far as I knew, though I didn't get a very good look at them before they hid. How they were able to survive was beyond me, from what I'd seen at a glance, that pony shouldn't have been standing.

“You’re back,” a voice from behind said.

I couldn’t gaze at whoever was unfortunate enough to look at my torn soul. I simply shuffled my shoulders in recognition, tears still pouring down my face as I attempted to silence my sniffling. No need to show any weakness.

“I would ask why you did all this,” the voice continued. “But what’s the point? It won't change the past.” It rasped in a dry tone. Whoever it was sounded very familiar somehow, but the suppressed anger and depression were as evident as words in an open book. This pony knew who I was, what I had done.

Then suddenly I knew who stood behind me. The other survivor of the Ponyville incident. It was-

"What I really want to know is how you live with yourself. Do you even know how many died?"

I just laid on the ground, nuzzling the ash, crying tears that dried before they left my face. It was all true, and I deserved every bit of her criticism. I did this... All of it...

I couldn't take the shame. My body reacted violently, shaking with held back pain. I broke down, incessantly bawling, unable to hold the tears in anymore. Tears streamed down my face as I groaned quietly into the ash piled between my forehooves.

"What are you doing?"

I didn't respond. I couldn't. Not to her. I had no justification for my actions, and even if I did, she wouldn't accept them. As I cried, I heard a gentle trot muffled by the ash.

Clop, clop, clop. Clop, clop, clop.

She spoke again, this time the voice coming from in front of me.

"Are you crying? Do you actually care? Can you still feel any emotion at all after what you've done?"

Wind whistled softly in the air. Crackles of some still burning embers echoed across the ruins of Ponyville. I heard a soft hum, and something nuzzled between the ash and my face. I opened my eyes and was met by a jagged red gem outlined in golden fittings. The gem had a deep crack through the center, as though some impossible force had broken it like a heart.

"I found it amongst the others in the ruin. Funny really. One of the most powerful artifacts in Equestria, one that even time itself couldn't break, and you cracked it without even touching it."

The Element of Loyalty. I was still loyal, but I couldn't change the past. The fact that I had taken part in the murders of an entire countries worth of ponies surely meant that I could no longer bear an Element of Harmony. No amount of physical force would break an element; it was my psychological choice that rendered this crack in the necklace. Another fault to atone for, if it was ever possible to wash my hooves of the rivers of blood they swam in.

"And I always thought you were loyal. Turning on your friends like this? Your home? Were you ever loyal?"

"I FUCKING WAS DAMMIT!"

The outburst shocked her as much as it did me. I struggled to get on all four hooves, still staring at the pile of ash my head had laid upon for what seemed like hours.

"I tried so hard, but it wasn't enough! I just wanted to be better! And it said I would be if I helped for a day. All it wanted was one day. I didn't know. If I had I wouldn't have..." I slunk back to the ground, fighting back more tears.

There was silence for a while as she tried to comprehend what I had just told her. I heard her sit down, the unmistakable sound of ash pluming up around an impact, even one so gentle, was carried on the wind.

She broke the silence with a question.

"It?"

I couldn't even begin to respond. The whole story would take a long time, and she would probably either kill me or not believe me at this point. But I had to give her a reason to care, if somepony was capable of feeling sympathy towards me it was her.

"I don't know what it was. It just offered me a deal of sorts. Then I lost control. Nothing else really matters."

"Where?" She quickly asked pointedly.

"Where we went to confront that sleeping dragon a few years back, deep down in those abandoned caves. Remember when we all got that dragon to leave? Fluttershy saved the day? Remember, Twi..."

"I don't care." She said flatly, "Anything you have to say about the past no longer matters. I hold you in the same contempt as a changeling, if not worse."

More silence. There wasn't much you can say when the mare that you had considered one of your best friends just told you that she hates your guts, not that she didn't have a good reason.

"I really want to kill you." Twilight Sparkle said with an even tone, making my blood run cold.

Then do it. Please, just put me out of my misery. I wanted so badly to cry out for my own demise, but my innate sense of survival wouldn't let me.

"But you deserve to suffer, and you have too much to fix for me to let you die now. It might not have been all your fault, but your actions lead to this catastrophic event, and I still expect whatever is left of the old Rainbow Dash to fix this. You said you would never leave Ponyville hanging."

After what I'd done? She expected me to help? I would be killed by anypony who owned a weapon within a day. Two if I was lucky.

Luck. Sigh.

"Of course... Never..."

More silence.

"There are only two major cities left you know, if you count Appleoosa. Then again, you did your best against Stalliongrad. Half is leveled or turned to ash."

"Are either of the princesses...?" I couldn't say it. It seemed almost blasphemous to ask if the rulers of Equestria, immortals who could move the very sun and moon, were alive.

"No. From what I've heard your 'event' killed Celestia and Luna instantly. Poor Luna was making good progress in her attempts to regain the trust of her subjects. Her confidence was returning and she was finally ready to put the Nightmare Moon incident behind her and focus on the future. Princess Celestia finally had her sister back, I don't think I’ve ever seen her so happy. And now they're both gone."

Oh.

A sort of empty void filled my heart and mind as all faith in the universal religion of Equestria was dissolved in that one moment. Bitterness was all that remained. Bitter memories and regret.

I managed to choke out a few choice words.

"I fucked up Twilight. Bad."

"Yeah. Thousands dead. An empire gone. Deities assassinated. Cities leveled. A one day massacre."

Silence. There was more pressure on my throat, impairing my ability to speak. Even trying to feel caused pain somewhere in the part of my heart that hadn't turned to stone.

"I had to bury them you know."

No. Not them too. The darkness had snuffed every spark of light in the land it could, but they were immune, they had to be. No matter how impossible the challenge, they had always come out on top.

"I buried them out in the Everfree forest. Near the grove where Pinkie sung to us all for the very first time. Most of them died quickly when Sugarcube Corner collapsed. Applejack was pinned under a crossbeam with the weight of the entire roof on her. She told me that she was going to die and I wouldn't believe her. But she did die. Slowly and painfully. Every single one of them is gone. I couldn't even save a single one..." Twilight's mask of composure began to slip and she turned away for a moment to gather her nerves.

I wanted to ask how she survived. Did one of them cover her from the horrors of the explosion as Bon Bon had done for Lyra? She seemed to know what I was thinking and continued, but with a sense of hesitation and faltering words.

"I was lucky enough to be standing in the doorway at the time. The explosion collapsed the roof first, crushing them or impaling them on beams. I was blown back into the store after the collapse, so nothing impacted me. I broke through plenty of walls and debris though. Why don't you look me in the eyes when I talk to you Dash?"

I slowly opened my eyes, still looking straight down at the ash pile that softly coated my cheeks. I moved my gaze gently across the ashy ground and saw her hooves. Only three cracked hooves met my gaze, ankles cut and stained with blood. One leg appeared weak, as though ligaments were torn and had not healed properly. I raised my gaze higher, and saw the dirt and ash that coated her frame. Blisters and burnt flesh were prominent along her sides and stomach. Fur chopped unevenly around the injuries. One scar looked to be freshly healed over a deep gash that followed along the right forehoof across her side, up to her... Her right wing was gone. A bloody scar with apparent pustules formed along the side where her wing once sprouted from. The gash continued down to her cutie mark, splitting it in two. The stump where her back left forehoof should be simply hung down from her flanks, a bandage and rope wound tightly around the base of the stump. This injury was not completely scabbed, and fresh blood held to the wound, giving it the appearance of a melted red candle.

I dared to look even higher, seeing the way her neck was strained to swallow her own spit. Then I saw her face. Her right ear missed its earlobe. Her teeth were jagged and no longer even, several in the front chipped. A few even missing. A single lone scar leapt from her chin up to above her left ear. And finally her horn. It was once a proud symbol of her magical prowess, now it was dirty and chipped on the sides. It looked brittle, like too much magic would make it burst. Her eyes glared at me. One of them was bloodshot, the other bleeding, causing me to recoil at the sight of them.

"You did this." She whispered softly, "And there is no hell hot enough for you to burn in. But I expect you to fix this damn mess you made of the world."

I couldn't withhold the question eating at me ever since she suggested my help.

"What? I mean... how?" I managed to choke out.

"Kill it."

I couldn't have heard her right.

"I don't care how, but it's your responsibility to clean up this mess. This thing must not be allowed to live. Are you going to redeem yourself by crying while the world burns around you? Removing that entity from the word would be a start.”

"I… kill…?”

"Yes."

"But...I don't think I can..."

"I'll help."

Now I was even more confused.

“I can't trust you to do this on your own, Loyalty." She said the word with disgust. "I have no faith in you anymore. Besides, I need to be there. I want the pleasure of delivering the final blow, because Goddesses knows you won’t."

I felt a glimmer of hope. If she would travel with me, maybe she would listen to my story. And if our journey led to fruition, I could atone for some of what I had done.

"Come on, it's a long way to New Appleoosa. We need what they can provide. And..." she added after glancing at me, scrutinizing, "rub some dirt and ash on your coat. You are far too recognizable; any survivors we run across would kill you on sight."

No kidding.

Then she glanced at me softly, with almost a sliver of pity.

"I saw you carry Lyra away. Is she safe?"

I nodded.

Her gaze turned hard once more. The hatred and contempt visible once more in her eyes.

"Let's get going. Loyalty." She turned up at the word, as if the very thought of such a thing was offensive to her.

Guess I have a new nickname.