I stayed sitting in my corner and watched Crow work. He collected several vials and other liquids into one area and began mixing stirring them. From my place in the corner I could smell traces of different plant oils and various extracts. One of which may have been vanilla, but it was quickly overpowered by something else I didn’t recognize.
Once he had a lot of them mixed into a vial, he went to one of the buckets and with a small scoop, pulled out a scoop of water. I thought it might have been a trick of the light, but from where I was sitting, the water looked black as night. I squinted, but the water was gone into the beaker before I could see much more of it.
I watched and waited as Crow set the beaker of fluids into a holder and moved it closer to the furnace. I knew nothing about alchemy, so couldn’t venture a guess as to what he was doing, but it was interesting to observe. He returned to the counter and began grinding up some seeds in a mortar and pestle. The smell of lavender hit me a few seconds later and I felt myself relax.
“That smells lovely,” I said.
“I’m glad you like it. I used to make a calming pomander for some of the villagers before everything changed. I thought you might be able to use it right now.”
“I think I’m calm enough, Crow.”
“Hmmm, but is it thanks to you, or thanks to my scents?”
I had no response, so I just shrugged.
“It is not difficult to create, and I am waiting for my potion to percolate anyway.” He crushed the lavender, added it to a small vial of fluid, then shook the bottle and brought it over to me. “There you are. Just sniff that if you feel anxious. It should calm you right down.
“Thank you.” I took the bottle and popped off the cork just for a second to smell the concoction. True to his word, it smelled soft and comforting. “What are you cooking, if I may ask?”
“That—” he pointed at the beaker near the fire “—is an attempt to purify the spring-water.”
“Purify it? What’s in it?”
“Darkness.”
“Darkness? Like, the thing influencing the village?”
He shrugged. “The truth is, I know not what it is, but it is dark, and it is in the water.” He pointed at the buckets next to the furnace. “The pool where I fetched water from is where it is most concentrated, and is also where the villagers congregate. They sing to it, or for it, I’m not sure which.”
“What effect does the chanting have?”
“Again, something I do not fully understand,” Crow said. “I do know that it increases the influence of the darkness, but that is the extent of my knowledge.”
I shuddered remembering how it had wormed its way into my mind, making me feel like it only wanted what was best. “I felt it, and I liked it at the time, which is even scarier now that I’m free of it.”
“Indeed. That’s what makes it so sinister.”
I thought for a moment. “Have you felt it? You seem nearly immune.”
He shook his head. “I assure you I am not. It whispers to me just as it does to you. I am sure it whispers to the villagers as well.”
“It almost sounds like a good idea, but then where does life go from there? You worship darkness for the rest of it? That sounds like a terrible life.”
“It does. No choices to make. It is why I do what I do.”
“How do you think you can fix it then?”
“I have succeeded in treating small portions of the water. With this, I hope to create a mixture potent enough to treat the pond itself.”
“Will you be able to make enough?”
“We can only wait and see.”
I nodded, and when no more conversation was forthcoming, Crow turned back to his work. He waited while the water boiled, and took it off the fire. He swirled it, added some more ingredients to it, and scrutinized it under a magnifying glass. He took a larger portion of water and dropped a tiny bit of his mixture into it, but he shook his head, and I assumed it did not work.
He turned to the other bottles, vials, and containers on his table and got to work mixing up another batch of something. His actions seemed random as well as his choices, but I was no alchemist, and could offer no advice.
I don’t know how long he was at it, but I eventually woke up to find myself alone in darkness. It was pitch-black, and at first I panicked, I squeaked out in terror and gasped, but a hoof quickly reached out stroked my neck.
“Shhh, calm down. You are safe here, my girl.”
I quickly calmed down once I realized I was in Crow’s home. “Ah, thank you, Crow’s Flight.”
“You’re welcome, Chatelaine. I promise I will see you out of the village. It was wrong of me to try to keep you here to help.”
“It’s… alright. It was callous of me to dismiss your concerns so lightly. You’ve been trying to help your village for a long time, and it’s only been you. I can’t imagine how that must feel.”
“I am old. There is no greater goal for my life than this,” he said. “I will either die alone in the dark, or I will die with friends and family in the dark. Given a choice, I will work towards the latter.”
“I am rested, if you want to get back to work. Have you slept much?”
“Very little, but that is all I need. Sleep matters little to me these days.”
I pulled myself to my hooves. “Then I will help where I can. What do you need?”
“Well…” He grunted and I heard his knees popping as he pulled himself up. “I have a mixture that may work, but the only way to tell is to throw it into the pond. Do you think you will be okay with another trip down to the water’s edge?”
I gulped, but nodded. Then I realized he couldn’t see me nod. “Yes, I will come. Cowering in fear will do no good.”
“I appreciate the help. Let me prepare the bucket and we can go.”
Crow picked up one of the two buckets he had. He had covered it with a lid, so I couldn’t see the contents, but I heard it sloshing about inside. “Do you think it’ll work?” I asked.
“I hope that it will. It was a struggle to get a carrier pigeon that would fly to Canterlot in the first place. I hope the ingredients you brought will make the difference.”
No other words were spoken and the two of us crawled up out of the basement and into the darkness. My teeth were firmly clenched on his cloak again, and his tugging led me along through the night. His decades of living here had given him a preternatural sense of where everything was and his sure-hoofed pace took you through the buildings back to the pool.
There was no chanting this time when I arrived at the pool. There was only an intense and overwhelming silence, broken only by the trickling of the water as it arrived at its destination. I wondered if we were at the same place, but I heard Crow place the bucket on the ground and I knew it was here he wanted to work.
Crow tugged at his cloak and I let go, albeit reluctantly. I didn’t move and waited. I heard splashing, but I wasn’t sure what his plans were. If he was walking out into the pond, he was probably going to dump it into the center, or as close as he could get to it. The splashing eventually changed into the *swoosh-swoosh* of somepony wading through deeper water, and I continued waiting with bated breath. If he needed rescuing from the deep water, I could do that, but I was concerned about the darkness that was ‘living’ in the pond. What would it do to him? What could it do?
I heard the squeak of wood rubbing against wood, and a quiet *pop*. In the next instant my eyes stung as a glow appeared near the middle of the pond. I gasped in surprise and wonder at the same time other voices gasped in fear and anger.
Crow lifted the bucket filled with glowing liquid above his head. “Long hath mine efforts dragged me forward toward a day when thine spirits should be freed from this heinous grasp of darkness.” The ponies around the pond muttered in confusion and indignation as his speech began. “Pray, forgive this old fool his indulgences and realize your own worth. It is not the light from above that gives life meaning, it is the light from within.”
He tilted the bucket, but before the glowing liquid could begin to pour into the pond, the water below him surged and swamped over him. His words were lost, and the bucket was held carefully in the water’s embrace, firmly sitting upright as Crow thrashed and choked in the deeper portion.
I gave a cry of despair and stepped forward, but I saw dozens of pairs of eyes lock onto me the instant I moved. They didn’t move, but in the glow emanating from the bucket I could see them staring daggers at me, as though daring me to move forward to help.
Crow was drowning. I watched another pony step forward into the pond and press Crow’s head into the mud beneath the water, and I stood watching. As Crow’s struggles weakened, everypony around me watched me with imperious eyes. I was paralyzed with fear, and I cursed myself for my weakness. Another pony waded into the pond and picked up the bucket’s lid. They moved to where darkness held the bucket rigid, and placed the lid on top. As darkness filled the area once again, the last thing I saw was Crow’s body, unmoving, his cloak billowed around him in the water.
I ran.
It was dark, but this time they did not pursue me. They didn’t even call out to me. They had one prize and they were intent on taking advantage of that. I was ‘free’ to leave. As free as I could be, anyway. I could run as far as I wanted and I could probably get away.
I slammed into a tree and crumpled into a heap on the ground, head ringing. I felt tears welling up and started crying. I couldn’t tell if I was crying from fear or sadness, but I knew I was both afraid and heartbroken. That sweet old pony that just wanted to see his village freed had died trying to help them, and they had been the ones forced to kill him.
I pulled closer to the bole of the tree I had hit and allowed myself to cry. The saddest part of Crow’s death was that I knew he wouldn’t blame them for doing what they did. That ‘thing’ in the water was affecting their judgment, and had been the one pulling the strings.
I sobered upon that realization. I had seen the thing in the water.
There was something there! It wasn’t just the rantings and ravings of an old pony who had gone strange in his old age. He was right! He had been right about everything! The darkness in the water, the darkness controlling the ponies, and the darkness about town; all of it was true! It was alive!
Crow had found something that would hurt it, so it had been forced to lash out directly. The bucket was still intact, and had been sealed. It was unlikely it would destroy it or empty it, because the very sight of it made it angry. It was still being kept somewhere, and I could finish what Crow started!
I calmed myself down and waited. Then I listened. The sounds of the forest around me overtook those of my own unsteady heart. I perked my ears, and could hear no calls for a stranger, nor any songs of darkness, and I determined that I was alone. The darkness still enveloped me like a suffocating quilt, but I was in no immediate physical danger.
I lifted myself on shaking hooves. My orientation was askew, and I didn’t know from which direction I had come. I thought about if it would be more beneficial to return back to Crow’s home and try to put together more of that fluid, but dismissed the idea. I had no knowledge of alchemy. My hopes of creating a new batch of whatever it was Crow had mixed together were slim. It would take years, and by then the influence of the darkness over them would be far too great. No, if I was to save them, it would have to be now.
I thought back to the path Crow had taken to the pond, and I remembered that beyond the wheel ruts from wagons, it went downhill. I tested the ground around me in a small circle. There was a minor slope to it, so I walked carefully downward.
It turned out that I had not deviated far from the road in my panicked flight. I encountered the wheel ruts, now covered in hoofprints, and not too long after that, I began hearing voices.
Some voices were chanting. Those not engaged in praising the dark were muttering. I slowed in my approach, but none of the voices stopped to pay attention to me. I was unmolested. I imagined it hinged upon my silence, as it had before, so I kept my mouth closed tight. As I entered the group, I heard a strange sound. It sounded like… crying.
Not knowing where to begin my search for the bucket, I followed the curious sound until I reached the pony it was issuing from. They were saying nothing, but their grief was plain. They were also alone. I walked in a circle around them, and nopony else was nearby. All others were busy with whatever dark business they attended to when not mindlessly chanting.
I reached out a careful hoof and touched them. They flinched at the contact, but did not withdraw. Emboldened, I pulled them into a wordless hug. At first, they did not hug me back, but after a moment of confused sniffling, trembling hooves wrapped around my back. A low voice spoke: “I killed him,” it said. “I didn’t want to but it made me do it.”
“I know,” I said back. I heard the water in the pond splash. Our voices were quiet, but it was safe to say it knew something was wrong. I didn’t have much time. “Where is the bucket?”
The pony froze. Their shaking stopped entirely as they understood my intent. All other sound had stopped. The jig was up. I heard splashing next to me, frantic and active. On a hunch, I released the hug and reached out where the splashing was coming from. I felt wood and seized it with my magic, just as the splashing increased in volume.
The glow from my horn was faint, but in its light I could see a liquid form take shape. A pony, made of the dark water existing in the pond had grabbed the bucket across from me. It was strong. Stronger than my magic alone, and I had to wrap my hooves around the bucket to prevent it from pulling away. The frigid water it was made of bit into my fur and skin as we wrestled, but neither one of us was willing to let go.
The ponies around us were silent and still at first, but those I saw in the glow of my horn were staring with those awful, blank-eyed stares. After a few moments of wrestling, I heard them begin to chant, and I felt those awful suggestions enter my mind once again.
“Strangerrrrrrrr,” the crowd intoned. “Strangerrrrrrrrr.”
This time, however, I felt no desire to obey. My goal in coming back to this pond was not to help myself. This time I was trying to see the lives of others improve from my actions. This was not for me. This was for Crow and his village, and I’d be damned if I gave up just for my own benefit.
I shifted my grip and my hooves broke through the watery skin of the thing fighting me. One of its limbs was separated from the rest of its body and fell to the ground with a splash. It began to lose its grip, and I grinned in triumph. However, just as I felt that small glimmer of hope, I saw the ponies around me begin to move. They converged on us and I felt hooves grab hold of me. They lifted us both up, the liquid pony maintaining its grip on me and the bucket, and suddenly we were flying through the air.
The icy waters of the pond closed over my head just as I took in a breath. The cold tried to force the air from my lungs, and the now invisible form of the watery pony enveloped me. It closed in all around me and I felt myself descend into darkness. The glow from my horn showed nothing except for me, the bucket, and interminable black.
My ears popped, and I realized it was taking me deeper into the pond. It was going to suffocate me, and be done with it. I tried to kick, to swim upward to the surface, but I could barely move. I was in its element, and it held the upper hoof here.
I was running out of air, and I could not escape. I had failed.
I would be gone, and the ponies up above who had given themselves up to darkness would remain trapped the rest of their lives. Slaves to whatever this creature was. They would live out their lives praising it, and never again live for themselves. Never see what their own desires, thoughts, and goals would accomplish. Crow died for nothing.
My lungs burned, and I was getting weaker. I tried to wrench the lid off the top of the bucket, but the force of the dark water pushing in around me was too strong. I couldn’t budge it. It was cradled in my hooves, and I held it tight. The darkness couldn’t yet take it away from me, but neither could I release the contents… not the traditional way anyway.
The pressure of the water on my ears was increasing and beginning to hurt. I didn’t know how deep this pond was, but I was still going down. I didn’t believe it was the natural form of the pond, but that mattered little. I released my grip on the bucket with my magic. I would need every bit of my magical force to do this. I felt the water tug at the bucket, and I let it pull away from me a small amount.
With the last bit of strength I could muster, as air bubbled out of my lungs, I fired a blast of magic at the bucket. It splintered and broke apart, a golden explosion pouring out of the remains and coalescing into a beautiful yellow orb. The water around me roiled as though in pain, and the darkness receded, disappearing to someplace I did not know.
I inhaled, but all that came in was water. It hurt, and I reflexively tried to inhale further to get air instead of water, but I only managed to bring it more water. I finally felt myself hit the bottom of the pond, and I flopped onto my back. From my position, as blackness crowded along the edges of my eyes, I looked upward and felt peace. There in the water, just above me, was a beautiful golden sphere, floating above me in blue. Next to it, wavering from the water it shone through, sat a pure, white moon. The pain in my chest receded, along with my vision, and the two orbs were the last thing I saw, floating next to each other, both with a beautiful light to share with the world.
The End.