//------------------------------// // Aftermath // Story: Tempora mutantur // by Tallow and Port //------------------------------// The patter of rain against already damp dirt echoed through the desolate valley, storm clouds as pitch as night covering up any sign of the setting sun besides a few piercing rays that shone like lava between the descending water droplets. A stunning blue feather fell from the sky, slowly fluttering down to rest at the mud-spattered hooves of a slouching figure; who barely even shuffled her wings at first when she caught sight of it. Slowly, muscles and bone creaking, she extended a hoof and scooped the feather up, raising it to her mud-covered snout and viewing it closely with blurry eyes. A silvery streak escaped down her cheek, leaving a clean line of purple fur in its wake. She lowered her head, mane lacking its ethereal state and now saturated with enough water to make it feel heavy, sticking to her forehead messily. A few magenta sparks sputtered from the tip of her horn as she attempted to locate her sisters, but they didn’t want to be found, blocking her out and continuing their separate journeys to who knows where. The young Alicorn sank onto her barrel and rested her head on the mud; after all, there wasn’t much else to do, was there? Everything may as well have stopped existing for her, her friends-sisters-might as well have been her whole world, as she couldn’t see anything left for her without them. No... They HAD been her whole world, she corrected herself in utter hopelessness. And now they were gone. And she really didn’t think they’d be coming back. :::::::::::::::::::::::::: A blur of orange, a gust of wind. Her feathers rustled as they passed so swiftly through the air, the mare they were attached to not caring if they stayed or fell out due to the pressure. All she currently cared about was getting away. Her eyes streamed with baby blue light, sometimes even crackling out of control and sending little arks of blue lightning into the surrounding clouds. Getting away from that terrible turn of events. Getting away from the rest of her sisters. Getting away from all that remained of those lying pieces of scum. She knew that they would reform in the future, she’d been there when it happened, but those creatures were the descendants, not the actual beings that created the species. They could be forgiven, but the catalysts could not-could NEVER be forgiven. She snarled through gritted teeth, horn flickering as she deflected her older sisters searching probe, stab of guilt almost enough to turn her around and go back, but her refusal was so strong she almost fell out of the air, her wing muscles so stiff in their gliding position they barely avoided snapping their own bones. She wouldn’t go back, not yet, perhaps not ever. She needed time, she needed space, she needed somewhere quiet. With nothing better to think of, she continued to fly, wingbeats causing great gales to form below her. :::::::::::::::::::::::: Darkness, stars, space. And a lot of blue. Her wings refolded themselves onto her back when she noticed the blue, as they were the ones causing it and she currently couldn’t stand to look at anything blue. The planet below her was blue, it had so much blue on it. She turned away from it, horn flickering as she shoved her eldest sisters tracking magic away from her, appreciating that it wasn’t blue but still not wanting to be found by her at the moment, if ever. She just wanted to float around here in space, it was nice and not blue up here, well despite the planet bellow her, but she wasn’t going to look at that thing. She was just going to be up here. She winged over to the moon and inspected it for a time, before deciding it reminded her too much of blue and went to take a nap on the sun instead. She looked out at space and saw some of the blue stars, she growled and turned onto her stomach as she refused to start shivering. This was the sun, she shouldn’t be shivering. Why did it have to be blue? Why couldn’t it have been grey or something? She shook herself, fluttering her wings to disperse her jitters, but she had caught sight of the blue feathers again, she couldn’t stand it. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, her teeth bared in a furious and silent growl, her ears flattened and her horn started buzzing with her green magic. She screamed and shot a beam at the nearest blue star, snuffing it out within seconds before moving on to the second, and then third-and fourth-and fifth- :::::::::::::::::::: The white Alicorn shot so fast through the air the wind whistled between her primary feathers. She didn’t know where she was going, she just knew that she was going somewhere and that it was thankfully in the opposite direction of where she had come from. She didn’t even feel the pelting rain smacking into her like tiny boulders as she whizzed through the overcast sky, didn’t even feel her ethereal mane growing heavy as it collected water in its mist like grip. All she was thinking was that she needed to LEAVE, and leave FAST. She skittered through the air as she felt her oldest sister reach for her with a searching strand of magic, violently severing it with a bolt of her own as she continued to fly in a blind frenzy of terror. A wing dipped too far and she was sent careening into the side of a hill, the slick clay on said hill she’d struck staining her legs near black and sending her down a natural slide to the bottom where she flapped sodden wings and scrambled shaking legs in an attempt to keep getting away, forgetting to magically dry herself in her frenzy enough that she was now very much grounded under a ton of rain soaked fur and feathers. She got a glance of her now stained legs and froze. As dark as they had been, as dark as their forms, the colour of those disgusting hides of theirs! Due to sheer horror, she regurgitated what little food remained in her stomach before collapsing. She needed to get away. She scrambled to her feet and immediately set off at a gallop, using sheer Alicorn willpower to destroy any obstacles in her way as she resumed her retreat. ::::::::::::::::::::::::: Her mane and tail were strait as steel, all ethereal aspects gone from it as she ran at full tilt, occasionally flying over obstacles too big to jump. Eyes glowing strawberry red, she bucked her biggest sisters’ magical tracker doohickie away from herself, snarling wordlessly as she crushed any rocks she came across to dust. She needed to run away. She just couldn’t be around them right now. Not right now. Hopefully not forever, but definitely not right now. She ran on. :::::::::::::::::::::::::: She had to RUN. She had to ESCAPE. She had to GeT oUT Of HERE! She couldn’t look back. She mustn’t look back. She destroyed all traces of the eldest’s tracking magic and ran on. She spread her yellow wings and took off into the sky. Diving into a giant forest. Staying there. She would NEVER go back. NEVER.