Golden Prose

by Field

18

“Bookie, I thought I raised you better than to make such a mess in someone else’s home!”

It was Golden Prose’s voice alright, but now I knew better. Even from where we now hid behind a large chunk of fallen stone Bookmark and I could both still see the real Golden Prose still floating in her literary prison. Nightmare Moon’s disguise was wholly pointless.

“Oh come now you two. Don’t act as if I can’t see you back there. Come out, it’s only me.”

The colt and I looked at each other cautiously. Neither one of us knew how to respond. Hiding seemed useless at this point. The only question was how long we played along with the mare’s deception.

“Stop pretending to be my mom!”

The little colt stormed out from behind the stone and boldly stood his ground against the imposter. I had no choice but to follow suit, lest I let the foal take the brunt of the entity’s wrath. Even if that’s what it took to shake Golden Prose from her trance there was no way I could live with myself if something happened to him.

Imposter Golden Prose stopped abruptly as we appeared. She glanced upward, seemingly only then becoming aware that the real mare was in plain sight above our heads. Instead of being startled or upset, she only chuckled.

“Well I suppose this won’t do any longer, will it?” The mare shook her head with a smile. “Perhaps something more comfortable is in order.”

In a swirl of shadows the form of the author was gone, slowly replaced by that of Nightmare Moon once more. Without her armor she was almost indistinguishable from her counterpart, Princess Luna. The giveaway was the not so faint reverse in the purple and black shading of her coat. I doubted anypony who had never met the Princess as I had would be able to see the subtle difference in the look in her eyes.

“Find a word we can use. I’ll stall her.” I hissed quickly to the colt, hoping that the act of transforming would deafen Nightmare Moon to my words for a moment. The colt nodded and quickly ducked back behind the rock we’d hidden behind.

“Now where is that foal off to in such a rush?” The alicorn mused as her transformation completed. “Surely after everything we’ve all been through a little shapeshifting cannot be that frightening.”

I stepped directly into the path of the oncoming alicorn, blocking her from following after Bookmark.

“What do you care?” I hoped my voice didn’t shake. “You already have the pony you want; why not just let him go? You know she’d do anything to keep him safe whether he’s here or not.”

The alicorn smirked and allowed herself to be held up by my presence.

“And just how do you know what I want, my little stallion?” She trotted slowly in a circle around me, seeming to appraise me. “I’m actually quite hurt that you would even insinuate that I am doing any of this for myself.”

“Using her to gain power seems pretty self serving to me.” I gazed up toward Golden Prose.

Nightmare Moon chuckled and sidled up beside me, matching my gaze towards the writer.

“I can sense in you that you are no longer operating under the misconceptions you were when we last met.” She purred.
“So you of all ponies should realize that I am just as bound by the confines of the story as you. All of us here are creations of the Princess of the Night; I do what I do by her will, as do you.”

“Don’t try to put a spin on this again…” I growled quietly, leaning slightly to distance myself from the alicorn. “Frankly my mind is made up.”

As if to accentuate my point a loud whistle erupted from the darkness and a flare gun round arced past us, skimming just over the back of the Nightmare Princess. The light blinded me for a moment, but I knew it must have come from Bookmark.

The clever colt must have found something useful after all.

A wisp of shadow bled from the alicorn’s back where the radiance of the flare had burned her. If it caused her any pain her face didn’t betray it. She merely tossed me aside with a burst of magic and started off in the direction the flare had come from without a word.

The magical burst knocked me off my hooves and sent me tumbling across the stone floor. It shouldn’t have done more than knock the wind out of me, but the various cuts and bruises all over my body each seemed new and fresh as I came to a stop. It was only my fear for the little colt that stopped me from lying there to catch my breath.

I quickly rolled to my hooves and took off after the alicorn before I lost her in the dark expanse of the chamber. It wasn’t difficult. She moved at a very slow, methodical pace as if she felt threatened knowing that the colt was now armed.

I galloped ahead of her and skidded to a halt, blocking her path once more. It was unlikely that Bookmark had stayed in one spot after firing the flare. With its one time use he was probably off scurrying through the darkness to find another word of power. Hopefully Nightmare Moon did not realize this.

“Don’t hurt him, he’s just scared!” I shouted, steeling myself for another magical attack.

“And he very well has reason to be.” The alicorn stopped in front of me, no longer shying away from using her looming stature to intimidate. “You tell him to fight when you know deep down that you cannot destroy me, the story forbids it. What you tell him to do is tantamount to suicide for you both.”

With another burst of magic she cast me aside once more. The restraint of the first blast was gone. The impact hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer and sent me spiraling down into my own private world of pain.

I couldn’t breathe. Every inhalation felt like grinding broken glass in my chest. I didn’t know if it was an effect from the magic or whether she’d managed to shatter a rib. Not that it mattered much now.

From my sideways view of the world sprawled out on the stone floor I could see the Nightmare Princess resume skulking through the dark rubble, hunting for Bookmark.

What would happen if she found him? Would she kill him?

Keeping him alive and captive gave her a power over Golden Prose, but how long would it be until that was no longer necessary? Nightmare Moon would be powerful enough to take control of the Everfree herself soon, if she wasn’t already. Killing Bookmark would be the final blow to drive the author mad and destroy any power she had left.

Whatever delusions of heroism Princess Luna had put into my head were dying. My only choice now was whether the rest of me died with them.

“I don’t want to die here.”

My voice was clear and strong in the dark chamber, resonating off the rubble around me. The alicorn had moved beyond my field of vision, but I knew she had to have heard me.

“I don’t want to die here.”

Quieter this time.

I struggled to sit up on my haunches as the Nightmare Princess flowed out of the shadows beside me. The air of intimidation was gone, instead replaced by one of pity.

“So you are finally willing to speak the truth tonight.” She said calmly; eyes closed.

Unwilling to face her I stared at the stone floor in front of me.

“Just tell me what I have to do to make it out of this alive.” The words tasted foul as they forced their way out of my mouth. “I don’t want anything except my life.”

The slender alicorn smiled and leaned down to nuzzle the top of my head gently.

“Despite everything you have experienced these past nights I have never wanted us to be foes. Even when Golden Prose first ventured to this place and awoke me from my slumber I offered her kinship to help her find what she desired. She balked at my offered and forced me to do this.”

She gestured weakly upward toward the author.

“The four of us here are all creations of the so-called Princess of the Night. I, born of her subconscious desires. And the rest of you of her rational mind trying to subvert those animal instincts. None of us are whole. But together we could be, and it would be well within our rights to take the power of the Everfree for ourselves as payment for everything we endured.”

I sat, shoulders slack, watching the muscles in the alicorns forelegs flex and spasm from the intensity with which she spoke.

“What do you want from me then?” Was all I could manage.

The alicorn wrapped my torso in a magical aura and lifted me to my hooves. I felt numb as if an anesthetic had been applied where the magic touched. It was the only thing that allowed me to remain standing.

“A gesture is all I ask…” The Nightmare Princess purred, leaning in until our muzzles were only inches apart. “Renounce. Renounce the false goddess of the night and stand by my side.”

I closed my eyes and sighed deeply. My mind was clear now.

From my vest pocked I fished out the crystal Princess Luna had given me before we parted ways. I held it on my upturned hoof in front of my face. It was still dull and lifeless. And I understood.

I smashed it.

With all the effort I could muster I smashed the crystal onto the stone under my hoof. It shattered and I could feel the shards stick into my hoof like broken glass, but I didn’t flinch. Instead I ground down with my hoof grinding the broken crystal and its algae contents into the floor.

“My Princess.”

I knew it was right, what I was doing. As the embodiment of an alicorn’s nightmare leaned in to favor me with a kiss, I obliged. I tilted my head up to her and our lips met, not tentatively, but with a kind of familiarity to be savored.

Then I struck.

In one swift motion I scraped my shard-laden hoof across the floor and slammed it across the alicorn’s face, driving it away from my own. The bits of crystal dug through what should have been flesh, but left only dark contours in her fur.

The alicorn recoiled and shrieked with rage, whether from pain or surprise I couldn’t tell. Her horn lit up with magic as she prepared to retaliate, but it only served to display the true damage I had inflicted.

The wounds on the Nightmare Princess’ face burst into a radiant blue glow as the bioluminescent material deposited there fed on the tremendous surge of magical energy. In the darkness the light was blinding, but I turned and ran anyway as the pitch of the alicorn’s scream heightened in what I knew had to be pain this time.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!”

Her voice shook the chamber as I ran. Over my shoulder I could see that the glow from her horn was gone, but the residual luminance on her face remained as the magic faded.

I had evened the odds a bit, but not enough. I was still too weak to fight her off, but without the use of her magic there was a chance that Bookmark and I could escape to fight another day.

I shouted the colt’s name into the darkness and was rewarded by a reply and a flash of magic to announce his location. He must have been watching us closely. I could only imagine the confusion he was experiencing.

We met up several yards ahead, both trying to put as much distance between us and where the alicorn was. Rather than try to explain myself I grabbed the colt by the scruff of his neck and flung him onto my back as I ran.

Escape.

We needed to escape but I had no idea where the chamber exit was, if it even still existed. There was only one landmark in the darkness that I knew reached the outside world.

The stone around the base of the radio tower was slick with rain from the storm that still raged outside. Bookmark leapt from my back as my hooves skittered from under me and brought me down on my face as I tried to stop.

The colt already knew what I had in mind and began climbing up the rubble piled around the base of the tower even before I’d managed to get back on my hooves. Whatever numbing magic had been cast on me had worn off or been revoked. Only the panicked flight endorphins kept me from crying out in pain as I followed after him.

Thunder rumbled above our heads as we climbed. It was loud enough to give the colt a moment of hesitation in his climb and gave me a chance to catch up. The tower was only several rocks above us now and I could see what I had been hoping for. We were on the correct side of the structure to reach the service ladder that would give us access to the top.

Unceremoniously I boosted the unicorn atop my head, practically tossing him at the lowest rung of the ladder. Despite the torrential downpour coming down through the hole in the roof above he managed to grasp on and began to climb.

We had only made it about fifteen feet from the base of the ladder when I knew we were no longer alone. The rain around us was deafening us to its approach, but I barely caught sight of something in my peripheral vision before it swooped in.

The dark alicorn appeared with ebon wings spread wide. Unhindered by the rain she swooped in and clipped Bookmark in the face with her wing tip. The impact cost the colt his grip on the ladder and he tumbled down, crashing into my head along the way. I barely caught his mane in my teeth before he fell any further.

Flailing, the colt half grasped onto me, half grasped onto a bundle of hanging wires draped beside the ladder. He held fast in fear and I couldn’t open my mouth to tell him let go for fear of dropping him. When the alicorn swooped in for her second pass it was unavoidable.

Her wingtip caught me in the face and knocked my grip on the ladder loose. My hooves slipped against the wet metal and I felt the undeniable wave in my stomach that let me know we were falling. In desperation I flailed out and managed to wrap a foreleg around the wire in Bookmark’s grip. He in turn released his grip on the wire and wrapped his forelegs around my neck, hanging across my chest.

I clung to the wire desperately as my hind legs dangled freely. The shifting weight had moved us farther now from the ladder than I could reach. There was no way I could climb up the wire with the foal hanging from me. I was terrible at climbing as it was. We were stuck.

No longer coming in from the periphery I saw Nightmare Moon swooping down once more for another strike. She barreled toward us headlong, seeming no longer content to just clip us. Her head was down and I knew what it was she intended to do.

“Bookmark! I’m so sorry!” I shouted over the drum of the rain. He tried to answer. Either to ask why, or maybe even just asking what I’d said. But it didn’t matter. I brought my hind legs up and pushed him away from me until he lost his grip and disappeared into the darkness below.

I didn’t actually see what happened immediately after. The act of pushing Bookmark away made the wire twist so that my back was to the alicorn. All I felt was an impact like a sledgehammer on my back. The alicorn crashed into me full tilt and we toppled to the ground below in a mass of writing limbs.

It didn’t hurt when we hit the stone floor below. In fact, nothing hurt anymore. I struggled to move, only to find that the lower half of my body wasn’t responding. I looked down to see why, and that’s when I saw it.

The horn through my chest. The long, slender alicorn horn piercing through my chest like some kind of perverse breast piece.

As if seeing the wound had allowed it to truly manifest I suddenly became keenly aware of how cold I was. Blood did not gush from the wound as I would have expected, but I knew I was bleeding out.

“Why… why would you make the do this…?” The alicorn attached to the horn whispered behind my back. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

I opened my mouth to reply but was only rewarded with a bubble of blood rising in the back of my throat. I coughed it out and managed to spit my words with it.

“Didn’t have… a choice… we were bound… bound by the story… never had a choice…”

I coughed another mouthful of blood onto the floor. My vision was fading, but I could still see Bookmark a few feet away from where we lay. His chest rose and fell steadily. He was unconscious, but alive.

“Never had a choice…”

My eyes refocused on something between Bookmark and I. Before I even realized what it was I was using my forehoof to scoot it closer to my face. I didn’t know why.

The alicorn shuffled on the ground behind me, her head movements shifting my entire body.

“Was it all worth it?” She asked quietly.

I would have answered her if I’d had an answer to give. But I did not. So with my last ounce of strength I pushed the end of the exposed wire into my mouth and clamped down on it as the lightning struck.

The bolt struck the tip of the radio tower in a dazzling display of sparks. Seeking the path of least resistance it traveled down the ground wire, finding me at the end instead.

My body went rigid with the shock and my jaw clenched so tightly I could hear my teeth crack inside my head even over the ear-splitting boom of thunder. A primal, animal scream tore through the darkness behind me once more as the raw fury of nature passed through me and into the alicorn.

The damaging light from the flash and the surge of electricity robbed the nightmare princess of any control she maintained. Her horn exploded with magical light, in turn uncontrollably feeding the bioluminescence on her face again.

As suddenly as it had arisen the scream behind me cut out. The horn through my chest sizzled and shattered to ashes, turning to sludge in the rain.

In the last moments before my senses failed me I became keenly aware of a tear running from my eye. My last thought was only to wonder why it was there.

Author's Note:

Hoopty doo that chapter took forever. Writer's block galore, hopefully the quality of this chapter isn't too lacking because of it. ((LOL who am I kidding, of course it has.)) One chapter remains though, pony pals.

Comments

[-Brutus]

A cliffhanger! Damn you.