Eckret looked over the documents of the newest ruling from the royal family that affected his town. The dullahan was visibly disgusted as he looked over the documents in his office. Like most gan ceann he preferred to work in the dark and had his windows boarded up and used glowing crystals to light up his workspace. Purple crystals. They always made the old tribes uneasy.
"Sir!" a voice called out from behind the door. Grunting following as whomever was on the other side struggled to push said door open. "Ugh! I thought you were going to get rid of all the boxes of files."
It was Jellybean, the pegasus. Her coat and feathers were a hot pink whilst the tips of her wing feathers, mane, and tail all sported a bombastic yellow that blinded any who stared at it too long. She thought getting an orange streak through her mane would help, but Eckret still found himself squinting at her from the side even in this lighting. The only thing about her that didn't blind an onlooker was her cutie mark, that looked like some kind of hellish town seal. None of the shapes were recognizable nor were the letters on the trim readable. Just random assortments of bronze, green, yellow, and red. No pony could figure out what it was and Jellybean refused to compound upon it.
"How the Hades am I supposed to store them elsewhere?" Eckret bellowed angrily as he slammed his hooves on the marble table. He noticed Jellybean reflexively pull away from the sight of his limbs floating about in the dim, purple light. "We almost lost all of this when the store building caught fire!" The stallion passed a hoof through his mane. "How does a brick building catch fire? I thought it was designed without any flammable substances in it!" He slammed his head onto the table, making Jellybean squeak in horror. "The council is expecting everypony to find a solution to this decree that the king and queen sent out, but it doesn't even make sense!"
He pushed himself away from the table and angrily kicked away boxes in his way, stopping at a wall with a map of Equestria.
"That's...what I was here to talk to you about. The council needs you with them to resume the debate. Apparently, the decree is more important than we thought. It might be a solution to the sun, too."
The dullahan looked at her, his eyes wide with pleasant and hopeful surprise. He felt a warmth well up within him but was quick to douse it. Hope had no place in the real world. "The royal family have been hiding strange events happening around old Equestria and suddenly they have a solution for the sun?! I'm not buying it." Eckret looked back to the flag and focused his attention. "Wine made from the rumor vine says that everything has been going belly-up since some event up north."
Jellybean witnessed the mayor's body slowly stretch apart from itself before snapping back into place. She knew it was just the ambient magic around them causing it, but she still couldn't get over it. A dissociation of body and mind. Didn't matter how long she trained her mind to get used to that.
"So, what now?" she asked him.
Eckret groaned and turned to the mare. "I'll get the paperwork and the decree," he groaned. "Tell them I'll be there in a few minutes."
The stallion gathered his wits about him and stepped outside of his office, taking the door that led directly outside. The town had grown exponentially in the last decade. What were once just a few houses and a plethora of trees became several multi-purpose buildings...and a plethora of trees. Had he not been there, Eckret would have believed the town to have grown. A hundred and twenty-five inhabitants explodes into well over ten thousand. Oddly enough, only pony tribes had decided to come live here, causing a variety of architectural types to come about. The old tribes still worked with wood and stone, but the 'newer' ones had more extravagant material. The dullahan worked with rough stone material and crystals, producing rough stone shapes that could very well have just been made from a bored-through boulder that they brought. That, or they made their homes underground, something they shared with the Eckhan Crue and Crancan. The crancan preferred to decorate their homes to remind them of the sea, replete with fake sea foliage, shells, and coral. It caused a major disconnect to any observer when seen next to the half of forest that the city was built next to and the various giant trees growing around the streets.
It was a weird, disjointed little village where anypony could live in the calmest way possible with little-to-no stress.
"SO WHY IS THE SUN ATTACKING US NONSTOP?!" Eckret shouted in his mind.
Over the past few weeks the sun had started seething with a fury no pony had witnessed before and was attacking the buildings and trees. The ground was scorched and a lot of the trees had been turned into burnt matchsticks. Most of the wooden homes had been burned away, and the underwater tunnels the Crancan had dug for themselves had all but dried up. Hundreds were in hospitals and makeshift homes in underground homes to protect the victims from the sun. The dullahan wasn't one to cower before a bit of light. That wasn't the nature of his tribe. He calmly walked over to the stone trap door where the council was currently residing and went down the steps to an open, semi-circular chamber where eight other ponies were waiting for Eckret.
Torches were held upon sconces all around the room. It was hard not to trip on the uneven rock floor, but that could be dealt with using simple chiseling tools. The dullahan saluted his fellows and sat in the middle of the crescent moon 'table' made from hastily chiseled stone.
"Now what?" Eckret asked as he dropped the documents on the table. "We ask the king for help weeks ago, and now he answers with this." He held up a bunch of paper. "I trust you all received your own copies."
The unicorn furthest to the left nodded. "I can't believe it, either. He ignores us unless it's to gather royal taxes, but when we need help it's too much?"
"He wants us to send our youngest to the capital to train to become soldiers!" the eckan crue to Eckret's left stated. "Why? Because some 'war' is about to happen? Against who?" She groaned and slumped in her chair.
To Eckret's right was another dullahan and shared in the stallion's temperament. "I'd tell him to piss off, really. supposedly he's too busy dealing with something at home to care about the 'little ponies'."
"Alright, enough with the debating about the king's personal life!" Eckret interjected. "Can we focus on the decree? Wanting us to prepare for war, gather stockpiles of wood for the reserves...We can't do any of this, not with the sun the way it is."
The whole chamber shook violently, and screaming followed soon after.
"What is it now? Did the sun come down to punch somepony in the face repeatedly?" the other dullahan said with exasperation. "Can't even have a discussion anymore."
The nine went to see the commotion, expecting another building to have collapsed, but the reality was much worse. The sky was engulfed in a golden light coming from the sun that had somehow bloated to five times its size and looked like a furious ball of fire ready to consume everything below it. Strange white flames were igniting all over the place and setting fire to what normally couldn't be set alight. To the council's horror, they could see ponies screaming and galloping around as their bodies were consumed by flames of various colors. The council ducked reflexively when a beam of light shot out of the sun and created a streak along the ground, destroying the taller buildings and melting the smaller ones outright. Another shot through the remains of the archival building, tearing the five-story building in half.
"We have to split up and find survivors," Eckret announced. "Go! I'll look around here."
The other eight nodded and split apart into the flaming mass of the town. Eckret hurried over to what used to be a group of stores and a wagon maker. He called out to any survivors, but the structures had already collapsed on themselves and fire blocked any path inside. In a way, he felt a twinge of regret at seeing all the tools and merchandise consumed by the gluttonous white flames. The childish expectation of survivors having nothing left after the fires went out took over his rational mind briefly. The Dullahan hurried along the line of burning buildings and charred ground and continued calling out for survivors when he noticed a group of ponies were trying to push away collapsed wooden debris with a plank of wood.
"What's going on?" he was quick to ask.
A mare rushed to him. "It's my husband and children. They got trapped in our house!" she shouted.
The dullahan cursed under his breath. That was right. Even children could suffer tragedies like this. Why wasn't he able to think straight? He looked at the five stallions and mares pushing down on a large plank of wood to clear the rubble that was once the doorway. Eckret jumped on the plank, pushing it high enough to destabilize the flaming rubble and allow the others to rescue the father and two foals. They were suffering from smoke inhalation and severe burns.
"You need to take them to one of the underground hospitals or simply flee deeper into the forest," the dullahan said. "This isn't a time to fumble about, so get going! The rest of you who aren't wounded are with me. We need to save as many ponies as we can."
Eckret quickly met up with the second dullahan council member after what felt like hours of work in a clearing far from the burning buildings.
"I'm exhausted," Eckret complained. "What about you? How have you fared?"
The other dullahan coughed. "I've been at this for as long as you have. It never ends."
The two looked at the exhausted ponies around them, all of them suffering from varying degrees of burn wounds. Many were slumped, taking the brief moment to rest as much as they could.
"We've rescued hundreds," Eckret said. "How about you?"
The dullahan rubbed his forehead. "Probably the same as you." He looked around and his brown furrowed further. "We can't keep doing this. We have nothing to stop the flames and no pony trained in this kind of event..."
Eckret cursed under his breath. "You're right, but leaving the others behind? It doesn't sit right with me."
The dullahan put a foreleg on his fellow's shoulder. "You must be able to help yourself before you can help others. You'll be another part of the casualties if you stay behind."
Despite the internal struggle to accept what dullahan had said, Eckret resigned. He looked up to see the sky consumed with embers and smoke, and the sun in it shone brightly through the wall of black and gray. It was like a snowstorm from the underworld shaded by the light of the burning town.
"Fine. We must flee to the forest. We'll come back when the flames have settled," Eckret lamented. "I...I don't know if I can live with myself afterwards."
"It's okay. It's something we will all share, now we must leave and think of that another day as living ponies."
The two were blinded by a bright flash of light that tore the smoke away. Something was coming from the sun and flying towards them.
"What is that?" one of the ponies wondered aloud.
"Did the king send help?"
"That's just a pegasus!"
"Then how did the smoke clear?"
Another galloped forward and waved her tired forelegs. "Over here! Hey!"
"Something isn't right," Eckret said. When he noticed a white light forming at the head of the pegasus, his eyes widened. "Get away from there!" he called to the mare.
It was too late. She was engulfed in white fire. Eckret deafened himself to the screams as best he could. The incoming figure slammed so hard into the ground that it cracked and caused the already weak buildings around to collapse. It didn't matter who was in or around them. The ponies themselves had fallen to the ground and panicked when they saw the cracks fill with a burning, orange light.
"What is this?! Who are you?" Eckret bellowed.
"No pony leaves!" The figure shouted so powerfully that the smoke was blown away and the fires around were extinguished instantly. "You all stay!"
"What?!" the other dullahan shouted. "You think you can terrorize us and--"
He, too, was consumed by fires, but these were yellow in color, and he simply fell silently onto the ground as the fires raged on. Eckret could only stare weakly in horror as his fellow fell in an instant. The stallion looked back to the intruder.
They were enormous! He had never seen a pony that big before. They were easily three ponies high! Or at least, that's how he measured it. The stallion could see a horn and wings beyond the glaring white light engulfing their body and nothing more.
"Can't see me?!" the figure taunted.
The light vanished, leaving the pony for all to see. Many gasped, whether from horror, amazement, or some other emotion was outside Eckret's reach. Their body looked like it was made of molten lava. A blackened coat that turned white under various angles, orange veins running along their flesh that leaked magma around them but solidified around their body and regressed it. Small bouts of fire erupted from the cracks at irregular intervals. They were simple sparks compared to the veritable storms of fire serving as the pony's mane and tail. They engulfed the air above and behind them by several feet each and continued to spiral around wildly, lashing out at everything around them randomly, as fire was wont to do.
"I'm finally freed from the horrors I was subjected to, and I see everything gone! All that hard work! They did! They took her from me and now this is what I get to return to?!"
She leaned in closer to the dullahan, letting him better see her face. Her eyes looked like a six-armed sun on a dark-red background. Eckret could barely make out the veins of lava going through them. He also noticed several purple gems covering her immense horn.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked her.
"Because you're all traitors and you'll help me to get her back!"
The pony's horn swelled with magic as fires sparked along its surface. The tips of their mane and tail changed colors when they licked at the air when magic surged throughout the newcomer's body.
"I am Solar Flare, and I will have what's most precious to me returned!" she bellowed as she pointed her horn at Eckret.