Snippets

by The Wind King


Empty Knight


Solaris hurried down the darkening corridors of the Palace of the Two Brothers, something was wrong, something was very wrong.

The night sky was empty.

No moon, the symbol of his brother’s power and grace. No stars to remember the fallen heroes of old. No light to guide the travellers in the dark. Just a blackness that spoke only of despair and loneliness.

The absence of his brother's celestial sphere chilled him in a manner he couldn't explain, much as he couldn't explain the widening gulf between him and his brother Artemis, and much like his younger brother's sudden chilly attitude and self-isolation it had come out of nowhere.

He had woken early for the Summer Sun Celebration. The various revelries that would extend from the cresting of his sun until the raising of Artemis's moon often leaving him no time to see to his own matters throughout the day, he had only had to make the mistake of walking onto stage with an empty stomach once. The dining hall being void of his brother hadn't surprised him, Artemis had been skipping out on their shared mealtimes so often that it was rarer to see him in the private room Solaris had insisted on so that the nobles couldn't interrupt what little time they shared.

However the lunar alicorn's absence left the solar prince with a deep sense of melancholy that he had briefly indulged before quashing it as he had finished his meal, and given his thanks to the staff. Today was to be a day of celebration. Artemis would understand that their little ponies had to come first today.

His long legs propelled him through the halls at a gallop as self-recriminating thoughts echoed throughout Solaris's mind. He should have thrown protocol to the side and checked in on his little brother. He should have made an effort to share the days joys with the increasingly moody lunar prince. He should have done something.

Finally, after charging through the strangely empty and oppressively dark corridors for what seemed to be an eternity, Solaris barrelled through the twin doors of the brothers' shared courtroom, and his orichalcum shod hooves clattered to a stop as he spied Artemis sitting at the base of the stairs leading up to the twin thrones, his armoured frame turned away from the entrance.

"Artemis, oh brother mine, we are so glad to see you are unhurt." Solaris panted out as he slowed to a trot, throwing away all his doubts and worries. Artemis was still here, he just had forgotten that it was time for him to raise the moon. Solaris could still salvage whatever scraps of a brotherhood they still shared. "When the moon and stars did not show themselves we feared the worst for you."

"Unhurt? The worst? That has long since happened to us." The passionless tone his brother's voice stopped the solar prince in his tracks, that could not be Artemis's voice, even at his lowest the lunar alicorn's speech had been filled with a passion that could bring the most despairing of ponies back to hope.

"Brother mine?" Solaris took another step forward, reaching one of his hooves out as he came closer to the slumped form of Artemis, barely noticing as his words exited from his mouth in chilled clouds.

"Nay, Prince Solaris," even in the dull melancholy of Artemis's voice Solaris flinched back from the cold venom contained in those two words, his outstretched hoof falling to the stone floor. "You should know that not all wounds are of the flesh. What could hurt more than seeing my friends forgotten. Heroes that gave their heartblood and future so that others could enjoy the bounty of your land cast aside. Feasts and gatherings ignored, while the monuments we had erected to them face constant defilement and petty destruction." The lunar alicorn's cloak bulged and churned as his aetheric tail lashed underneath it with each word. "What could be worse than being forgotten by your own kin, ignored and cast aside for those same ponies that have spat upon the sacrifice of those long-lost friends."

"Artemis," Solaris's heart beat heavily in his chest, exertion turning to dread as Artemis's head twitched backwards as if to turn towards the solar prince and he felt, rather than saw, his brother's attention switch from the thrones to him. "I did not know that such things were happening, I loved our friends as greatly as any other."

"But you did know. I told you, I told you time and time again, and you shrugged away mine pleas for aid as if I were no more than a colt too young for any adult's time."

"Artemis, brother mine, please just raise thine moon and place the stars in the sky, and we sill see what we can do to aid you"

"You are no brother of mine, Prince Solaris, and the time for aid has long since passed." Solaris flinched back as a wave of darkness, raw and cold, surged from the lunar alicorn as he pulled himself into a standing position, before turning to face Solaris, revealing to the solar alicorn a horror he felt he would never forget.

Artemis's armour looked to be empty, but a closer look showed the dark alicorn holding it together, a pelt the colour of darkness so deep and chilling that it seemed to drag at Solaris's very soul peeking out from between the joint between adamantine plates, his once sparkling mane and tail now nothing more than lank shadows that fell lifelessly to the floor leaving patches of barely visible ice wherever they touched the stone surface, but the worst of it were his eyes, now empty and void of all the that had made the lunar alicorn so beloved, no cheer, no passion, no promise of protection from all the terrors that a ponies dreams could hold. Just a darkness that seethed with dispassionate hatred.

"Artemis..." Solaris could feel his heart screaming in his chest as he tried to reach out with a hoof, hoarfrost crackling as the metal strained against the chill that was creeping outwards from his brother.

"I am Empty Knight," the dark alicorn slapped aside Solaris's outstretched hoof. "And if you and your ponies so desire to forget the sacrifices of the past, and leave me alone in my sorrows then they shall be alone in the dark forevermore."

Solaris's horn barely ignited in time to shield him from the wave of darkness that poured forth from his brother, patterns of ice following stopping at the edge of the golden dome, even as the air around Solaris turned so cold and sharp as to drive the solar prince to his knees.
"Artemis, brother mine, please do not do this," Solaris could feel sweat run down his neck and sides as he strained to hold his shield against whatever strange force was pouring from the lunar alicorn. "Our ponies need our sun, thine moon and stars. Our friends fought so desperately to bring light and trusted us to protect them with it. Please do not do this, please do not leave them alone in the shadows, nopony deserves that."

"You would turn the memory of my friends against me?" Solaris wept at the almost dead tone of his brother's voice as the pressure on his shield doubled and redoubled. "You would use my loneliness as a justification for the continued indolence and disrespect of your ponies." Solaris felt his hooves leave the floor as his shield shattered, his flight through the darkness seemingly without end until he crashed into a stone dais, six gems falling into the slowly faltering circle of light cast by his horn, and a plan born only of desperation fell into his mind.

Struggling to his hooves Solaris's magic sputtered and sparked as he hefted aloft the Elements of Harmony, they had done so much to help his brother and him. If there was anything that could save Artemis it would be them.

Barely had he started to pour what magic he could summon into the gems before a tendril of shadow lanced out, and wrapped itself around his neck. The spiteful cold burning away at his flesh as his breath abandoned him, and he only just noticed Artemis standing at the edge of his magic's light.

"Brother... Please" Solaris managed to choke out as the elements spun ever faster in his fading magic and the noose of shadows tightened around his neck, sapping at his focus and power.

"Suffer alone."

The noose tightened as Solaris's last breath left him and the fading prince sent his last surge of magic into the elements, making the gems blaze with the same inner light that had defeated and sealed so many threats before, before the solar prince felt his body collapse as the bands of shadow that had kept him standing dissipated under the burning fury of Generosity, Laughter, and Loyalty betrayed. His brother's screams tearing at his heart as the maelstrom of Magic unleashed engulfed the dark alicorn, until, with a final calamitous surge of energy, the light whisked his brother, his Artemis, away.

It was only the following morning, when a curious maid entered the throne to find out what was taking so long for the royal brothers to switch the moon and sun around that they found Prince Solaris weeping openly as he stared upwards at the moon which now held a shadow in the shape of an alicorn's head.