//------------------------------// // Sjelekval // Story: Sjelekval // by Frozenfistt //------------------------------// Sjelekval By Frozenfistt You drift aimlessly through the void without a care in the world. Everything couldn’t be better in your life. Your sister has taken you back, your subjects respect you almost as much as they respect your sister despite what has happened, and you have been making friends. You slowly realize that you’re sitting in a great chamber with scores of your subjects before you. The chamber is filled with long tables that are covered in large quantities of high class food and waiters running to and from the kitchen to meet the needs of all of the guests. As the hall comes into focus you can hear the various conversations they’re having. You make out various small talk about business, entertainment, stories about their families, and you can’t help but smile knowing they love you and know you’re here to protect them. As you sit there and listen to the lives of your subjects you barely notice the dark new comer that came through the main doorway at the end of the large gathering hall. Thinking nothing of it you’re content with the serenity of listening to the various lives of your subjects and being an important part of their lives. As the night goes on you notice a slight change in the tone of the hall. it started out small but its soon grown to the point that you notice your subject staring at you out of the corner of their eyes and the hushed tones whenever they look directly at you. This worries you for a moment but decide to leave it be less you make a scene ruining the great party you’ve put on. Latter still the whispers start compounding into open conversation. You’re able to pick out a few words that are being spoken and are able to surmise that your subjects are questioning your rule and your motives with their lives. Suddenly one speaks up enough saying, “Why should we trust a ruler like her?” At this others take up torch and start berating and questioning you openly. Heartbroken that your subjects are having such a sudden change of heart you try and remedy the situation by talking them down. That only succeeds in working them up further to the point that they’re getting up from their spots to shout at you. They’re getting aggressive and start stalking up to you continuing their verbal assault ignoring the guards at your side and the kitchen staff. You quickly notice that both your guards and the staff aren’t even moving to help you as if they too have the same feelings as the growing mob. Suddenly a chair is thrown at you. Being scared stiff from the sudden assault you fail to see in coming and take a direct hit to the head blurring your vision and prompting the attack on you. As the mob continues to beat on you senselessly you can’t help but think this was your entire fault. After what feels like an eternity under the mob you find yourself drifting along in darkness, a darkness that is welcoming as if you’ve frequented this part of yourself countless times. Countless visions of yourself wreaking havoc on your subjects and your subjects retaliating rush past you. Tragedy after tragedy you inflict on the ones closest and dearest to you flow through you endlessly, eternally. You hear a hoarse mischievous cackling behind all of your visions that is starting to grow the longer you stare at your actions. Only when this laugh seems to dominate your mind through all the chaos do you eventually wake up. The first thing that meets your waking senses is the voice of your sister with the most absolute concern laced in it. “Luna… Luna please wake up!” You groan and tern your head to look at your sister seeing her face with the utmost fear plastered on it. You recall only one other time when she’s looked this scared and you had enjoyed it to no end, now, now it fills you with unbridled fear. “I’m awake, I’m awake. Ug what a dream.” “Oh Luna thank the heavens you’re alright. You had me scared there for a minute.” “What’s wrong Celestia, why did you wake me up?” “You were tossing and turning in your sleep so violently I just couldn’t help myself but wake you up. What were you dreaming about that caused you to act so violently?” “I’m… not really sure. I remember having a pleasant dream about a party in a great hall with scores of ponies enjoying their company and wanting to be a part of their lives. Then suddenly they all started becoming violent and hurting me. After that I had visions of me doing unspeakable things to our little ponies over and over again. It was during that that you woke me up.” “Well I’m just glad that you’re alright, but I am concerned with this dream of yours is this the first time you’ve had this? Or at least is this the first time you’ve had it after returning from the moon?” “Yes this is the very first time I’ve ever had this dream, not even when I was Nightmare Moon did I have these urges to hurt our ponies. It’s rather frightening I have no idea what it means.” “Well let us just hope that this was just a freak incident and that nothing will come of it. Now if you’re feeling up to it you should try and get some sleep, it’s still too early for you to be dealing with royal duties and what not, and make sure to tell me about any more of these dreams if you have them.” “Thanks Celestia, and I think I’ll try and get some more sleep. I’ll make sure that if I ever have another one of these dreams that I’ll find you right away and tell you so we may deal with it.” “Well goodnight then Luna, I’ll have one of the guards get you up when your duties start up for the night.” “Thank you, and have a nice rest of your day Celly.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visions of the past, present, and future rush through your mind. Untold alternatives of all three are played through your mind. From the smallest microbe to the mightiest titan, the weakest and strongest, the best and the worst of things, you feel all of it, you feel everything that is, has been, will be, and may have in an instant. It’s almost enough to drive you mad, but you aren’t normal that much is clear to you. You have absolute knowledge of this universal plane yet you don’t have a single clue to what you are, how you came to be, and what it is you’re to do. After what seems like an eternity seeing the workings of this plane of reality you wake up to what you assume is a body of sorts. The only issue is that it feels like nothing from the visions but something completely of its own accord. This swirling darkness that seems to penetrate your very soul is what makes up what you assume is your body. Opening your eyes you take your first look at your surroundings. You’re lying on your side in what appears to be a forest of some kind. You see grass on the ground and the think foliage that encumbers the large oak trees that make up the think forest you’re in. lifting your head up to get a better look at your surroundings and of yourself you conclude that the shape of your body resembles that of the ‘ponies’ you saw in your visions. Not only that but you notice that your body is covered in what appears to be a full suit of armor, no gaps seem to exist with the exception of the eye slots. Surprisingly you’re able to get on your hooves without any issues as if you’ve been in this body all your life. Looking around you also find something rather peculiar. You see an extremely large morning star resting on a tree not too far from you. From the bottom of the handle to the tip of its top spike the morning star almost seems to be longer than you. The ball at the top is so large one could mistake it to be a small wrecking ball. If that couldn’t intimidate you there are eight inch spikes covering the ball making it look like in instrument of absolute destruction. Not only could one swing of this terrible weapon shatter every bone in a pony’s body the spikes would impale so far into the body there would be no walking away from it. You’re drawn to this impressive weapon wanting to hold onto it like a life line never letting go even if your life depended on it. You grab it between your hoof and fetlock with surprising ease. After taking a firm hold of the weapon you attempt to lift it up over your head. As if this weapon was made from your very soul the weapon is lifted over your head as if it didn’t weigh a single pound. You rest the shaft of the weapon across your shoulder and back holding on to the handle with one hoof to keep it balanced on your back you feel as if this is where the tool of destruction was designed to stay at all times. Intrigued at all of these things happening at once you decide to take a few swings at the nearby trees. With unholy speed and strength you use your one hoof to swing your mace at the nearby trees with little to no effort effectively destroying the tree in one swing. The force of which you swung caused the middle of the tree to essentially explode from the unstoppable force of your morning star. After the dust and debris settle you decide to see what kind of vertical force you’re able to muster and take another forceful swing down on the stump of the tree creating a small crater where the tree used to be standing. While admiring your work a manticore had been slowly stalking your position after hearing the explosion of the tree on your first swing. After not having eaten for a few days the predator ignored the potential risk attacking this unusual pony in armor and only trying to sate its hunger. Stalking closer to the pony the manticore was soon in range to take his prey by surprise. Roaring the manticore lunged at his unsuspecting prey for a quick kill and a meal to survive the coming days. Unprepared for the toughness of the ponies armor the beast ended up tackling the pony and rolling over and over with him in his maw. Scratching and clawing at the armor to try to get it off the pony so the beast could have his meal the pony slowly turned his attention to the assailing beast with naught but annoyance in his eyes. Shoving the mighty beast off of him the pony got to his hoofs and squared off with the beast. The manticore roaring and slashing at the pony trying to be as intimidating as possible to strike fear into his prey just stood there unimpressed. Swinging his morning star with little effort the pony virtually destroyed the mighty beasts ribcage on its left side, breaking every rib on that side and several on the right side too while bruising the majority of the beasts internal organs while the spikes did their job and punctured several of the organs causing enough internal bleeding to drop the beast right then and there. Crying out in pain the beast slumped over on its side knowing it was going to die after such a blow. What the pony felt after hitting the beast was a complete surprise to him; it was as if he had felt the greatest joy the universe had to offer. Not knowing where this euphoria had come from he decided that to be safe he would put the poor beast out of its misery and crush its skull. With a mighty downward swing the beasts head had been obliterated and with it so did that feeling. Having an idea where this joy was coming from he decided to continue to beat the broken body of the beast to see if the joy returned. After his forth swing the sensation had yet to surface again after the manticore had died. Without anything to do the pony decided to start walking and try and find a way out of the forest. While walking the pony could sense the presence of the nearby critters of the forest but did nothing about them since they didn’t attack him. After what seemed like hours of walking the pony soon had more visions plaguing his mind, this time they were more gruesome then last time revolving around possible wars and their outcomes. Instead of being disturbed by these visions the pony found he was enjoying watching them struggle for their lives. After the visions had faded the pony started thinking about what he might have to do if he finds civilization on his trip. The pony decided that he would say he was part of a mercenary band and was separated during their last fight and was wandering around since trying to find a way to meet up with them. After contemplating various other possible questions someone might ask he noticed that he had exited the forest and was looking over a small town with brightly colored buildings and various ponies walking about. Deciding he had nothing better to do he started heading for the town. Before arriving at the town proper the pony had finally settled on a name for himself. He would be known only as Sjelekval.