The Dawn Will Come

by defender2222

Chapter 1

June 19, 999 CE
The Moon
2:50 am

The Mare with 48 hours before being freed fights to stay awake.

She knows it is a losing battle. It’s always like this when she manages to throw off the enchantments that keep her locked within her heavenly sphere, unable to interact with the world and the ones that dwell upon it. Sometimes she is able to battle for only a few minutes before they draw her back in; once she managed for nearly an hour before defeat reared its ugly head. But always it is the same thing, time after time, nearly a thousand years. Always she returns to the dreamless sleep, a prison both kind and cruel.

She tries to cling to something, anything, that will help her stay conscious. She searches for a name but finds that not even her own comes to mind. She tries to remember what happened, why she ended up like this, how she came to be trapped within the moon, but that too is fleeting. All she gets is wisps of thought and memory that fade away before she can fully grasp them. She knows that any other being would have given into madness by now. In fact for a while she had been insane. For 200 years she allowed herself to be swallowed up by the bliss that was full blown delirium. To be crazy had been to know a measure of peace, a way to escape the pain of her existence, to deal with the loneliness swirled around her. But as time went on she found that even insanity could not help her, that even madness could become tedius. So she decided to do something different.

She became sane.

Very sane.

With this new outlook came a new drive and new desire. The desire to be FREE. She attacked the problem as best she could. She tried new approaches and new methods, testing the limits of her bounds and seeking out weaknesses. Sometimes she chased after the darkness of sleep, hoping that if she embraced it she could control it and master it. Other times she fought it tooth and hoof, doing all she could to resist the siren call. She failed, of course, but refused to allow that to get her down or discourage her. She would not surrender just because she failed. After all…

After all…

'What is failure but a lesson, my little princess?'

The ever-present call of sleep burns away in an instant. Never in the millennia she's spent trapped here has she remembered someone's voice.

And yet there it is, clear in her head. The deep, gravelly voice that to so many brought fear but to her brings comfort even if it is just a memory. She remembers strong forelegs lifting her up and with sharp clarity she could see a gray face topped with a green mane and small emerald beard. He smiles as he sings to her, the rumbles of his voice soothing her and chasing away her fears. She is so small, so helpless, but this mighty being who so easily crushes all that stands in his path cradles her and murmurs sweet nothings. She is weak, powerless… but she is protected.

'Father', she thinks dimly. 'He's my father.'

She wonders how she could have forgotten. It all seems so clear now. He had been their brother first but become their father, adopting them, making them part of his family. He was the Lord of the Sea, who had taken her and her sister in when they were fillies and raised them and loved them as his own, protecting them both-

'Sister,' she thinks suddenly, startled by this new revelation. 'I have a sister.'

That thought it like a key turning in an old lock. The memories begin to come faster. Growing up and learning to master her magic. The gaining of her cutie mark and the thrill she felt when she connected with the moon. The happy days of youth. Some of them are vague, hardly more than a glimpse, but others are so startling complete that she sobs at their beauty. The innocence. The joy.

Yet these pass and soon come the dark times. The chaos being who attacked the land, seemingly drawn to them. Her father holding off the demon to buy them time.

'He'll be okay!' her sister yelled to her even as she looked back, wanting to return to the battlefield. 'Trust me.'

'Lies,' she thinks to herself. Her father had fallen because she'd trusted her sister’s judgement. The chaotic one... 'Kill him! Destroy him! Damn him! Damn him to Tartarus!' she thought with a snarl... had turned him and his subjects to stone and tossed them into his beloved sea. If he’d been there he’d have helped her; he would never have let her sister do this to her. He wouldn’t have let her been locked away.

The thought passes by so quick she nearly misses it. Her sister. She was the one that had trapped her. She was the one that had locked her away on the moon, her moon, trapped in the dreamless slumber. She couldn’t stand the idea sharing the love their subjects and thus trapped her.

‘Celestia.’

A single name. That is all it takes. Something suddenly shifts and she feels the invisible restraints crack and snap. Her hatred grows and she uses it like kindling in a furnace to drive her forward. She remembers what she was taught, the warrior’s spirit that her father instilled within her, and begins to fight back. More tethers begin to snap away and she is startled as she gains more and more freedom to see just how trapped she is. It seems as if every time she breaks one chain she discovers there are 10 more holding her in place.

And yet she continues on, resting only for a second or two before continuing, battling back against it all.

The time for sleep is over. The time for action is about to begin.

Author's Note:

First, my thanks to ShadowLDrago and CrowMagnom for their work in helping me get this story together.

As you can tell, this will be MUCH different from anything I've written. Done in the style of a historical thriller, like "Killing Lincoln" or "A Team of Rivals", the approach to this story is that it is being written hundreds of years after the fact by a scholar. Thus he is able to draw upon interviews, reports, so on, to find out things people did not know when the events occurred.

The next chapter brings us to Twilight Sparkle and the beginning of the pilot episode.

Comments

[Swashbucklist]

'Sister,' she thinks suddenly, startled by this new revelation. 'I have a sister.

'If I can turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will too.'

[Iamawesome]

Present tense...

Hmm...

Not my favourite tense...

Interesting chapter though...

[Azure Sandora]

Okay, this is interesting.

I'll be following it.

[MagicKnight55]

Wow...

Very good premise.
I feel like I am viewing a documentary!

[ShadowLDrago]

tedius

TediOus. Thought I caught that.