The Last Crusade--First Arc Complete

A taste.

Fallout Equestria: The Last Crusade

Darkness was always something that made ponies at least a little uneasy. Even those who enjoyed the nighttime and stars shared in this feeling. Beneath all of their wonder, there was a baseline fear of the unknown and the unknowable. What was in the dark? Most didn’t know. Thestrals, batponies, whatever you wanted to call them--they knew, but how much? Not as much as I thought, my mother’s singing voice explained in endless music. They saw but not as I thought they did, and they heard but hearing everything is not always a blessing.

My mother was beautiful. I remember that, even if I’ve lost so much of the rest of her. I remember being a foal still, when we lived in Central Station, where there were always lights and everything was safe. She was home alone with me, working on something mechanical.

I was in the dark, in my own little room. Even in the safety of my own bed, the darkness worried me. Normally, I could bear it. But that night I woke from a terrible dream, and even as the details faded the feeling remained, and I cried in fear.

She was barrelling through the door in a heartbeat, wings flared to give battle. But she found only me. She cooed at me, which she knew usually I hated but in that moment it worked. I didn’t care about how I appeared. I cared only for her embrace and for light. I asked her to turn the lights on. She held me, and turned to do so, but then stopped.

“Balm?”

I nuzzled into her soft chest coat and mewled a little affirmative. Beneath me, she took a deep breath, and I noticed her shiny necklace was gone. Suddenly, she stopped moving towards the lightswitch and squeezed me tight, nuzzling me fiercely. I squirmed.
“You hear, don’t you? Without… you hear me.”

My mother hummed, and at last I noticed that her voice sounded different. I knew it was still her: it smelled like my mother and she nuzzled like my mother. But her voice was different. I liked this voice. It was strange but beautiful. Why didn’t she always sound like this? And why would she ask if I heard her?

She carried me to bed and sat down on her haunches so that I rested in the hollow of her body’s natural curve, my head just touching her chin. She hummed, and I listened. “Do you hear that?” She would ask sometimes, and I would nod. She would nuzzle my head each time. “What does it sound like?” Was the question sometimes, or “do I sound different, Balm?”

At last, I asked her why she hadn’t turned the lights on, and she told me that the darkness wasn’t bad. I said it was scary, and she chuckled musically and said that yes, it could be. It could be very scary. I was never to be without a light. But the darkness could also be wonderful.

“But you can’t see anything. What if you trip?” I asked her, trying to look up. But her head rested firmly on top of mine, so that her voice came spilling out all around, as if she were everywhere.

Her wings made a strange leathery canopy and I saw their suggestive shadows. And yet, for once, I was not afraid. I knew what was there. I did not have to see to know my mother loved me.

“I can see for you,” she said. “I see everything that moves in the dark, my sweet colt. When you are afraid, I will always be there to show you that you need not fear the night. How does that sound?”

“I like it.”

“Good.” She kissed the top of my head. “And perhaps, one day, you too shall be able to walk in the sunless places.” Her voice was so low that I only barely heard it. “And sing the old songs.”

I didn’t ask what sort of songs. I was sleepy. Mom was soft and she hummed and everything felt--