//------------------------------// // It's an angel isn't it? // Story: The Fall // by waste //------------------------------// Sunlight leaks sharp light and weak shadows on his mane. The stallion reaches forward and digs out packed clumps of dirt. The dirt flakes off, and he examines the potato with content painted on his face. He packs it with the rest and sets about reaping the rest of his crop, the stench of earth stealing the stallion’s senses. He glides between fields, vineyards and orchards a soft curved smile on his face, happy weightless thoughts in his mind. As a unicorn it was always unusual for him to toil the lands; it was also unusual to stand around gormlessly staring into space. Most called him slow, but his parents knew that sharp exotic thoughts danced in his brain when his eyes would fall into that blue sky. Halfway through the pear orchard, empty thoughts transformed into heavy ideas. The stallion’s gaze lost itself in the heavens, while he thought of the inefficiency of common farm implements, and wonders if their ergonomics resulted from the ruins of a precursor species. Needless to say, the thought made him look a little dense. A Green and black blur punches the sky. Violent screams and curses throw themselves at the world. The unholy thing arcs across his land and lands in the strawberry fields, its curses forming the colour of fury and regret. With effort he abandons his thoughts and gallops a good half mile to the crater, an ugly scar in his well-tended field. It would take at least a month to get that field looking right again. Small angry blotches of green fluid are splashed on to the red flesh of strawberries. The green fluid has the sharp metallic smell of copper mixed with blood. With the crater in his sight, small careful steps follow small careful steps as he nears its edge. Bristles of green blue hair or fur cover the strange object in the crater. When he comes closer he can see the gleam of light on a hard black surface. Stepping over the edge of the crater, he sees the remains of a lifeless creature rather than some strange meteoroid. A shock of green blood covers the creature, and the gleam of light reveals a hard exoskeleton. Appallingly skinny with insect like wings, the creature looks more feminine then masculine. He recoils as savage pointed teeth jut from the creature’s dead mouth. Then he looks over its face and is stunned. He decides it’s a she. Despite her stick like limbs, and hideous veined wings, her face is smooth and well-formed all curves and delicate arcs that made a beautiful thin face. All of it covered by that hard black shell and peppered with a pair of closed eyes. And of course her green blood that manages to be everywhere. After much internal conflict he decides to bury her here right in the strawberry field. Obviously she was some sort of warrior angel that fell from heaven, only right to bury her someplace important. She’s not the only body buried on this land. He gallops back and finds a shovel. The yield of earth and a heavy handle scatters earth across that lovely alien face. He tried to listen for breathing, but he read somewhere that insects respire without constant muscle movement. He tried to feel her pulse but it’s hard to feel something underneath her hardened skin. He tried to open her eyes but with no success. He heard her very much alive screaming and cursing, and then heard her brief probably fatal collision with the ground. All signs point to dead. A small twitch and a grunt escape from her. The Stallion drops his shovel and shouts in surprise and worry, because now another small trickle of green is flowing from her mouth. She shudders again and it clear pain has dug its hands deep into her body, deep into the large cracks in her shell, deep into her exotic face, suddenly shaking it into an ugly picture of hurt. Against the common laws of nature she struggles hard to stay alive, much to the stallion’s confusion. Fear also claws at his mind because he’s afraid of the choice he’ll have to make. Either he’ll have to hope he can nurse her back to full health, or he’ll have to end her pain right here with the blunt shovel. Both are hard decisions and both are entirely right. Which is worse, to linger on the threshold of death and life being driven insane with desperation, or ending her fear and pain with a murderous strike to the face? It’s obvious which choice he’ll make though isn’t it? Because even for all his random and deviant thoughts he’s a stallion with a large soft mind, finds it easy to love and hard to hate. Also, for a unicorn that has spent a small lifetime caring and tending for plants murder is a probably a foreign idea to him. But his own dark thoughts call him an uncaring coward if he can’t simply pick up the shovel and end her life, do the most loving and humane action. He clears his head then proceeds to get as close as possible to the stranger. “Please calm down, I don’t know who you are but I mean no harm. You fell from a fatal height. I think you’re lucky you’re alive right now.” Delicate words laced with worry and hope gains no response, and yet her body curls up slightly and her head learns into his words. “My name is Wandering Thought, I’m going to get you some water, clean you up, patch you up and then set up a tent around you. I think it’s wise you don’t move too much because you have some serious injuries on you. I’ll be back soon.” His words are thrown down with dread rather than comfort. He stumbles and trips to the river, uses two buckets and blind panic to get a good amount of water. Finally he rushes to his drying line next to the river and struggles with a handful of old clothes, and dusty fabrics. He snarls because the damn things won’t stop being a problem, the blankets and rags more content with jamming his legs then helping him run back and bandage the stranger. Then suddenly the stranger is screaming again. She cries out in hoarse painful wails, tearing and clawing at the peaceful countryside. Broken and dying she lets a trail of tears carve though the dust and blood on her face, while Wandering Thought drops everything but the water and rushes to her side. Small hisses and groans escape her tortured fading body. Her own regret and failure do nothing to stop deaths slow march to her. She fights furiously to stay awake, and all she receives in return is the feeling of warm blood leaking from her body. With eyes closed shut she lets herself collapse and corrode further into death’s arms, the sound of her own heart releasing shards of hurt with every beat. She finally lets out a rattling sigh, because now she knows that despite everything she did in this life she’s going to die alone in pit of her own blood and regret, abandoned and soulless. But she’d like to see a little sunlight before she dies. Her eyes fold open and Chrysalis stares into two pools of worried blue eyes. ******************************************** Moonlight glows on a heavy canvas tent. The stench of her blood blends with the smell of strawberries and the scent of his sweat. She waits for the pain to stop, and he waits for her to sleep. By Celestia she could scream, after she broke their gaze it was mostly all she would do for the rest of the day. If she wasn’t quietly cursing and hissing, she was shouting and tearing at his ear drums. Misery turns into rage, and on more than one occasion she’d bite and cut him, a little bit of his blood stolen from him to soak with hers on the discarded bandages on the floor. Hate, hate, hate her large body cracks and explodes with it even while dying. Patiently he’d wait with a hoof on her shoulder and another to try and fend off her weak legs, as they tried to claw and beat him. He can only feel pity and fear for this angry spiteful mess in front of him. Then she would stop and stare at the ceiling of the tent. As if in a trance, her fury and rage would leave her body, leave behind an empty creature drained and exhausted. In this window of opportunity he’d rub ointment into those horrifying gashes on her side, and then cover them in bandages. Unable to stich the hard outer bone together he instead decided to pack the plates of exoskeleton as closely together as he can by wrapping them tightly, try and close some of the gaps. She’d gasp and sob a little while he gritted his teeth and apologised over and over again, then promises her that the pain will end soon. When the ordeal ended she’d search for his hooves with her disfigured pock-marked hooves full of holes. She’d find his hooves and then he’d hold hers, and he’d feed her a little vegetable soup or herbal tea while she’d often cry or moan. Quiet and well fed they would then worry together over her fragile damaged body. Her hooves would desperately grasp his while they both waited for crippling pain, silent death or peaceful sleep to take her. More often than not the pain takes her. Wandering Thoughts would then bite his lip as her anger and madness returns, the stranger being driven to insanity by her pain. She’d release his hooves and start shouting and thrashing. Then He’d have to put his hoof on her shoulder and it'd start all over again. However over the two past hours she started behaving differently. She started talking. In between her screams she’d say that Alicorns are a collection of weak selfish cowards, which would use lesser species to unfairly shield themselves from danger. Scream that she was Chrysalis! Queen of the Changeling union, all its nations, and all of its dominions and colonies! She’d shout it as if her words could split reality down the middle. Then she’d scream at how much of a failure she herself was, how she couldn’t even feed her people, that she should die cold and alone. With that over, she would lapse into another one of her cationic states and let the unicorn wash the blood off her shell while she’d calmly watch his shadows lengthen on the wall. It was during these times that he would listen closely, because rather than be angry with death’s closeness she would embrace death’s presence with despair and serenity. You see Wandering Thoughts isn’t like other ponies. To be honest he’s rather simple and a little boring. So when Chrysalis bragged of mighty nations and Alicorn weakness he paid little heed for he is, to be honest, a simple unicorn. But when Chrysalis finally calmed herself in the shadow of death he’d listen, since she’d release her most treasured memories like the rolling of great weights from her shoulders. Wandering Thoughts would always value the lovingly preserved secrets of a dying mare, rather than the boastful rambling of a remorseful tyrant. She told him of things so precious and intimate that he’d lean in and drink in the memories of the places she’s been and the things she had done. She told him of the great hive capital of Effervo, of a citadel that stretched to the pits of hell to the heads of mountains, told him how proud she was of her first child when she held it to her chest, told him with a smile, how much she adored the smell of cave mushrooms in spring and the delicate taste of iced pollen in summer. Lastly she asked him to come a little closer and listen to her last words. “I don’t know who you are, or where I am, but I thank you for holding Virgil and listening to these words. In life I thought I knew everything, but in death I realise I know so very little. I fought so hard for the love of my children, and sacrificed so much to bring them the love they deserve. But now I know you can’t fight and take love like a war trophy. You can’t take something that must be given. Tell my children I’m sorry I couldn’t feed them with the love from equestria. Tell them I’m sorry my love wasn’t enough. Tell them I’ll try harder next time.” She said this moments ago, then held his hooves tightly and softly closed her eyes. He holds her hooves and stares out of the tent. Of all her speeches and rants this last one was both the worst and the best. He was blessed to hear such honest, desperate tenderness and love, yet cursed to hold her broken dreams and broken spirit in his heart, until he tells her children how she died in her ruined body. Darkness is cut by piercing beams of moonlight underneath a blanket of stars, and he cries for that lonely dying monster, for that beautiful terrible dictator, for that fierce angry mother, because she’ll die alone and so far away from the family she loved and sacrificed for. He cries because even the stars have their sisters, brothers, mother and father when they die, but she’ll fade away lonely and forgotten with neither her children’s voice in her ear, nor at home where she tasted iced pollen in summer. He cries because she’s suffering, and no matter what he does he can’t stop Chrysalis from withering away. His crying suddenly turns into a silent terrible sobbing. He tries to breathe but can only steal ragged, frayed breaths of air. The night is still dark, the moon is still bright and Chrysalis is still dying. He tidied her hair and washed the blood stains on her exoskeleton, but this can’t hide how she lies so limp and vulnerable, with only her two hooves grasping at Wandering Thought’s own. Her body is now frail and corpse like, her strong stubborn attitude and his unbreakable stare the only thing preventing her from leaving her wasted flesh and broken bones. He slowly looks down at the ground and breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t respond. “I know it’s not your fault and it isn’t mine, but I’m sorry.” The morning sun slowly chases the night away, while birds welcome the small fringes of sunlight with their song. “I don’t know why we live in such a strange world, but I know that there is nothing but peace in the next. I don’t even know why your here, but from all the things you’ve told me, I think I know what you are. You don’t deserve this pain, this heart break.” He leans in close and strokes a tangle of hair out of her ear. Despair and destructive hope bleeds from his words, like the blood from her scars. This is his last dumb idea, to save her life. “Remember when you told me you needed love? How it sustained and nourished you and your family? Well I have a source of love that is never ending. You just need to listen to me so you can find it.” Her grip tightens but he ignores it. “At one point in my life I became a destructive hateful pony. I did many things I regret. I became something nobody could ever imagine. Even if my body was healthy I could feel the weight of all my guilt crushing my soul. In the end I just became tired, tired of hating, tired of how cold and hard my heart was, tired of living.” She tilts her head a little closer and squeezes his hoof, urges him to hurry. “Long story short I found myself in the strangest of places, a farm owned by an old mare in the middle of nowhere. She took me in and gave me reason. She’d never know it, but she gave me a home, a purpose and a friend. She saved me. Before she passed away I asked her “How should I bury you? Where should I put the pears? What will I do without you?” She told me to simply never stop loving then proceeded to abandon me and this world. Just like that I was hateful and destructive again. I buried her under an apple tree and then howled at her for leaving a giant hole in my heart. I hated her, I hated myself and I hated this world. How could I ever love anything again? And then after a month I found that a discarded pear had slowly grown into a small green shoot. I realised then that even if she’s gone, she was alive in that little green shoot. She was alive in every plant that she had touched, alive in the wind that spread pollen, alive in the sunlight that fed her farm, alive in me. All because she never stopped pouring her heart, soul and life into this land, never gave up on me. Even if you can’t feel her love in this land, know that you can feel mine and you can take all the love I have, because my love for her and her farm will never dry up, never compromise, never falter. It’ll be here after Celestia leaves and discord plunges this world into chaos, it’ll be here until time runs off the horizon. It'll be right here in the wind, in the water. ” Chrysalis is still silent, but already he thinks she looks a little better. He sends a small prayer into the pink dawn and closes his exhausted eyes, then falls asleep right next to the queen of changelings. The night is gone, the moon is hidden and Chrysalis is still alive.