//------------------------------// // Chapter VII // Story: Songbird // by PaulAsaran //------------------------------// They’d been walking for some time. Hours. Days? With the world stuck in a perpetual night, Celestia couldn’t be certain. Yet she never tired. Twilight could not say the same, and her condition was worrying, but she somehow managed to keep up. The trees of the forest grew more and more sparse and skeletal, the dark landscape a wasteland unfamiliar to either of them. The shadows lingered and danced at the periphery of Celestia’s illuminated horn. It seemed the distractions that had long plagued Celestia were gone. Her mind had cleared considerably, and while some of her memory remained clouded, she didn’t lose any memories since the defeat of the thing imitating her father. Her father who, she now understood with vivid clarity, had disappeared some two millennia ago. The implications weighed heavily upon her. Either Celestia’s foe was very old, or it had found a way into her memories. In either case, it made her wary of what was to come. More than ever, she wished for Twilight to remain behind, but she still couldn’t bring herself to send her away. Was it a desire not to be alone or to not offend her student? Perhaps both. The nightingale flew overhead, trailing stardust and singing its pleasant song as it led them along. It didn’t seem perturbed by their surroundings at all. The song touched Celestia’s ears and gave her heart a little burst of confidence. By now she was sure this was no ordinary Seashore Nightingale. Yet the bird remained a mysterious figure. Where had it come from? Why was it helping her? Why did it seem so familiar? Her eyes lowered from the nightingale, only to be met with black. She jerked to a stop, reaching a leg out to block Twilight’s path. The young pony gave her an uncertain look through weary eyes. Those same eyes went wide when they followed Celestia’s gaze and found the massive wall. “Where did that come from?” A proper question, for Celestia was sure something this large would have been seen from a distance long before now. Determining its height was difficult in the nighttime lighting, but it seemed clear to Celestia that it was several hundred feet tall at least, and it stretched to the left and right of them as far as the eye could see. Which, under the circumstances, wasn’t all that far. Unlike in the sparse, skeletal woods, the darkness did not move in any way. And yet it still gave off a heavy sense of foreboding. Celestia could feel something watching her from within, a sense of the mind that filled her with an urgent desire to move away from the unknown before her. Twilight did not appear immune, trembling in place as she gaped at the mysterious black. “W-we’re not going to have to go in there, are we?” Before Celestia could speak, a familiar voice rose from within the black. “I would hope not.” Her heart was squeezed by an unseen claw as, deep within the darkness, a flame was lit. The fire approached, slowly, steadily, growing ever larger. Soon a shape could be seen within, vaguely equine shaped. With a wing, Celestia brushed Twilight behind her even as her gaze narrowed at the oncoming specter. It stepped out of the wall of shadow, tall and regal and red. Celestia’s mother held her head high and stared down her muzzle at her. She wore a frown that could either be disdain or contempt, and Celestia didn’t know which bothered her more. The flames that made up her mane billowed in a quiet frenzy of sparks. The pale dragon’s claw that made up her breastplate seemed more menacing than she recalled. “Well, Celestia? Will you not greet your mother?” Celestia gritted her teeth before uttering, “You are not my mother.” “Oh?” Not a flinch in that commanding stare. “And what brought you to that conclusion?” “My mother died fighting a dragon,” Celestia hissed. “She perished defending Equestria from evil. Her death destroyed my father, and you do them both insult by taking on their forms!” Her mother peered, lips pursing. “Suppose that is true. What do you intend to do about it?” The words, laced with clear threat, gave Celestia pause. Indeed, what would she do? The deceiver’s appearance and manner was like that of a guardian, a soldier, a defender. If she tried to pass, would it attack? And if the recreation of her mother was even close to accurate, she’d be hard pressed to win a fight. She cast a glance at Twilight, who huddled behind her and shook as if the chill winds of death were upon her. To get into a fight with her student so close… “What’s the matter, child?” Her mother spat the words. “Typical Celestia, too scared to do what is necessary.” “Celestia,” Twilight hissed, “I think we need to go. I d-don’t feel right.” A hurried look confirmed that no shadows touched her, and yet Twilight trembled like a leaf. Her wide eyes stared upon not Celestia’s mother, but the dark wall behind her. Celestia nuzzled her gently. “What is it, Twilight? What do you feel?” “A p-presence,” her student managed to whisper. “It’s… It’s looking at me.” “Turn away from this foolish quest, Celestia.” Her mother’s scowl deepened at her glare. “Go back to your lazy, peaceful little life. Enjoy the pacifistic fantasy. It is where you belong.” “Do not speak as though you are my superior, monster!” Celestia stomped closer, wings flared and horn flashing. “I defeated your last three forms. I will not hesitate to do the same here. Begone, or face my anger!” “You would address me in such a manner?” The fiery mare’s nostrils flared, flames licking the air from the exhalation. “You’ve never stood up for anything! You would rather cower behind civilians and rainbows! You could not fight me even if you wished to, because you, child, are a coward.” “I defeated Chrysalis,” Celestia countered with a growl, dragging a hoof across the dirt. Her mother’s mane burst into a maelstrom of orange fire, crackling and searing bright. “You did no such thing! You permitted her to survive, to grow stronger, to come back another day to lay waste to Equestria! Admit it, Celestia, you are weak. You lack the courage and commitment to do what is required to protect your kingdom. You are unworthy of your crown!” Celestia’s throat ached with the ferocity of her scream. “Compassion is not a weakness, and my mother knew it! Show your true form, you beast!” The flames all but died. Her mother lowered her head to peer at Celestia. Though her face was calm and composed, the fires still burned brightly in her eyes. She spoke in a cool whisper. “No, Tia. Compassion is cruelty. It is a hard, menacing thing that paints a picture of hope and dangles it before your face for a millennium. A millennium of longing and desire and bitterness of needing that which you will not be able to receive. A ‘forgiveness’ of isolation, with naught but the taunting, cold voices in your head reminding you of how all the pain and misery could be gone if not for somepony’s forbidding compassion.” The creature bent low. Flames flickered between the joints of her armor as a quiet roar filled the air. “You know all about compassion, don’t you, child?” Her eyes bulged as the flames grew. “You speak of peace while stabbing your friends in the back.” And grew more, engulfing the former queen as she snarled. “I know of your compassion!” The claw of her breastplate tightened its grip, the sharp talons digging into her shoulders and bringing out blood that bubbled with the heat. “I will ensure nopony suffers your mercy ever again!” Celestia’s heart pounded as the flames grew, took shape, developed a clear form. She looked back to her gaping, trembling student. “Twilight. Run. Get away from here!” The young pony required no further prodding; she fled the scene as fast as her legs could carry her. “Face me, Celestia.” And she did, breath halting in the frail gasp as the fires coalesced at last into a massive, mighty dragon, with her mother hovering as the beast’s heart. The flames charred her mother’s skin, and the mare shrieked her agony as the talons tightened even more upon her body. “Mother!” The mare’s scream cut off as she glared upon her daughter with flaming eyes and blood on her lips. The dragon’s roar was a blast of superheated air and the cacophony of an inferno’s rage. “Run away, Celestia. Run like the coward you are, or prove me wrong and bring me down. Kill your mother! Be the creature of violence she always wanted you to be! “And if you can’t,” she hissed as the dragon’s blazing neck pulled back taut, “then go back to your fantasy world like the weakling I know you are.” The beast lunged, its orange jaws opening wide to engulf Celestia. She raised a shield, knocking the flames back as she stood her ground. She reared back, horn shining bright, and sent a prismatic arc of colors sailing towards the dragon’s elongated neck. The attack sailed through, decapitating the creature and making the flames of its head flicker out. Two more burst from the wound, living flame that shrieked in the night. Celestia unfurled her wings and took to the air just in time to avoid a furious swipe of claws, the fires licking at her hooves. Dodging the snake-like strike of one of the dragon’s heads, she unleashed another barrage of cutting color, removing the other before it could attack. Still, two more emerged. Her mother howled in agony, boiling blood coating herself and the dragon’s claw that dug into her flesh. It was enough to wrench at Celestia’s heart, for even if that was not her mother, it still bore her mother’s form and voice. It was almost enough of a distraction to let the heads strike, but she raised a shield at the last second and repelled all three. Unwilling to give the fiend even more appendages with which to attack, she began a midair dance of dodges, lunges, climbs and dives to evade. Amidst her agonized cries, her mother managed to force out words. “What’s wrong, Celestia? Use the godlike powers your royal blood has graced upon you!” She squirmed as the flames reformed to grant the fiery giant a pair of massive wings, every flap sending a cascade of heat into the area. Dead trees erupted in fire as the surrounding temperature rose dramatically. “Fight! Be the butcher of the griffons! Be the monster you always wanted to be!” “I am not a monster!” Celestia rose over a swinging claw, dove beneath the snapping strike of a head. “I never desired to be one! Not like you. I would never be like you!” She fought against the great wings, struggling to maintain control in the superheated, turbulent air. The beast stomped forward, carrying the limp pony at its heart as if she were no more than a marionette. Yet Celestia’s mother maintained a vicious glare upon her troublesome daughter. “Always Daddy’s little girl, weren’t you? I gave you all the power, all the might. You could have crushed your enemies at any time, but no!” Three heads breathed flames upon Celestia’s shield, maintaining a steady torrent as her mother screamed her agony and fury. “You had to follow his example, you had to be weak!” With a cry of her own, Celestia beat her wings hard to rise above the fray even as her bubble of protection collapsed to the searing fire. “There is no weakness in avoiding conflict!” The beast stepped back, heads reared once more, the flames crackling high in the night sky as the dry landscape burned. Waves of heat distorted its image, made her mother’s demented, toothy grimace all the more savage. “Oh, but there is, Celestia. And you took it, the coward’s way. You took it and left me with that inferior sop of a foal to take up my mantle. You forced me to work with such pathetic stock!” These words gave Celestia pause. She stared down at her mother’s twisted visage, heart hammering and mind spinning. “W-what? Who are you…? What other…?” The heads struck as one, unleashing flame as they exploded through the air. Celestia gasped, started to raise her shield— What am I doing? The shield dropped. The flames struck. Celestia basked. Familiar heat, searing and comfortable, danced on her fur. She breathed deep, taking in the magic present and pulling it into herself. The nature of it surprised her, its strength and heat and delightful pressure. And in her awareness, she came to truly understand. The heads disappeared, and the great beast pulled back as if stung. Celestia hovered above it, meeting her mother’s wide eyes with a glare as the flames flickered within. That little sun was ready to go nova, but she held it in as she began to lower herself. “I see. This is a foul thing you have done, creature. It is as pathetic as it is offensive.” Her mother said nothing, only scowled and continued the slow, cautious retreat. “It was a clever ruse, making me forget early on that fire can only ever be my ally.” She raised a hoof, which abruptly became engulfed in flames. “But I remembered, because it is only logical. However…” The fire snuffed out, her body going tense as she met the fake’s eyes once more. “Using the fires of the sun against me was your greatest error. My mother was a gifted pyromancer, but only I may touch the sun, for it is mine.” Her horn glowed a bright yellow, and the flames of the dragon were sucked into Celestia’s form in a slow, gradual pull. She could feel the heat growing, intensifying, building her strength. The creature that pretended to be her mother squirmed and howled, the great talon tightening even more about her as she fought Celestia’s draining pull. After but a few seconds, Celestia stopped. “You tapped into my sacred domain.” She felt her lips pull back. Her body shook, her wingtips trembled. “The only reason I have not turned you to cinders is for the knowledge you possess. Tell me what controls this world!” She sucked in more of the flames, the dragon’s body growing smaller as the doppelganger struggled to replenish its fire. “I…” Her mother coughed up black blood, blood that sizzled and became a shadowy smoke. “I draw upon the sun itself! My power is infinite!” With a growl that echoed over the raging flames, Celestia tapped into her charge, letting it engulf her very being. Her body shone in a blinding blaze as she spoke with all the majesty her lineage granted her. “I am the Sun Incarnate! Do you think but a small source can measure against all the fury of a star? I can cut off your connection with but a thought. Give me my answers, demon, or face my judgement!” Her mother… smiled. No, it wasn’t a smile. It was a smirk. The dragon darted to the side, flying through the air to pass Celestia and head into the forest. As Celestia turned to watch, she reached deep into the energies she’d tapped into, feeling the strangely close sensation of her beloved sun. She could deal with the repercussions of the sun’s seeming closeness later, for now she had to find a hole… “Hurry, hurry, Little Princess,” her mother taunted as she flew in zig-zagging motions across the landscape. “How quickly can you cut me off? Is it before I cook a tasty morsel?” “Celestia!” All the heat of all the stars in the universe could not stop her heart from freezing at that startled cry. Celestia gasped when she saw her student burst from her distant hiding place, fleeing the coming dragon that now banked to pursue. “Twilight!” “Come here, my little pony.” The creature laughed, a piercing screech of a sound that only barely matched her beloved mother’s. “I can’t burn the sun, but I can certainly burn you!” A fiery claw crashed into the earth, barely missing Twilight’s fleeing form as she shifted directions at the last second. “Leave her be, monster!” Celestia started to approach, but stopped herself. She was channeling too much of the sun’s power. If she came too close to the chase, she would incinerate Twilight by sheer proximity. Struggling to reign in her fluctuating, raging magic, she called out to her student. “Twilight, I will stop it! Just keep moving for a little longer!” But she’d taken up far too much of the sun’s energies. Her only hope of powering down now would be to unleash it, and that would surely kill her dear student. Celestia screamed in her impotence, her horn aching as she battled against the flow of power that was like an open drain. “P-Princess, I can’t!” Tears streamed down Twilight’s eyes, only to evaporate in a puff of steam when one of the dragon’s heads smashed the earth to her left. She jumped, turned another direction, wailed against what must have been unbearable heat. “Please hurry!” “Run. Run! Make this entertaining!” More twisted laughter, more manic screaming. The creature at the heart of the dragon howled in agony as the claw squeezed it with enough force to crush the bones in its shoulders. “Kill me, Celestia! Prove you are your mother’s monster! Kill me to save your darling student!” No. There was another option. Abandoning her fight, Celestia resumed her search within the boiling flame that was the sun’s power. Somewhere deep inside, she knew she would find it. A flaw. A hole. A tap. If she could just get to it… “Princess, please!” She closed her eyes, but her own brightness defied the measure and filled the world with white. Clenching her teeth, she dug deeper. A weakness. It had to be in there. The sun was her domain. It should be easy! “Come on, Celestia! What are you waiting for? Accept the fighting spirit I gave you!” Where? Where, where, where? So much energy, so much frothing, furious, burning power. It was so vast… “Celestia!” I’m trying, Twilight. Her search intensified. I’m trying! “Stop squirming, you little—” “I don’t want to burn!” There! A tiny crack in the magical fabric! Celestia focused all her senses upon it and, with the faintest touch of her mind, sealed it. Her eyes snapped open—just in time to see Twilight disappear into the wall of shadows. “No!” Celestia launched forward, but knew it was too late. The great fire dragon stopped before the wall of black as its controller howled with laughter. “Look at that! She actually went in, the foal! She’s as good as—” She shrieked as a golden aura snatched the claw that held her and tossed it across the smoldering landscape like a child’s toy. The pony body rolled across the ground, smashed through a burning tree that shattered into ash, and kept going. When at last she stopped, she lay on her backside and stared with wide eyes at the dark, starless sky. The flames of the dragon continued to writhe and snap, as if possessing a life all its own. Celestia hovered over the foul entity, sunfire caressing her fur and dancing upon her wings. Her breathing came in slow, heaving gasps between bared teeth. Celestia had not felt such burning menace within her own mind in… she was not sure she ever had. She did not think on it. She had no need to focus on anything but the foulness below and how eager she was to burn it. The creature climbed to its hooves, limping and bleeding and charred. It offered a sputtering, quick laugh as the claw carried it into the air once more. “Yes… Yes, Celestia. Show your mother what you can do! Let us see how pure and good you really are.” She gasped, the sound a weak rasp, as Celestia sucked in the dragon’s flames. “You.” The flow continued, dragging the creature higher as Celestia ascended. “Are.” Flesh seared black as the pony body squirmed and rasped, the flames growing weaker. “Not.” The flames died, leaving only a blackened pony whose form took on the consistency of shadow, squirming and wreathing and mute. The dragon talon tried to close upon it, but it grasped naught but dark. “My.” The shadows condensed, tried to expand, but were beaten back into pony form by the sun’s light. “Mother.” They were so high above the forest that the fires below seemed a mere speck, the flame of a matchstick. Now reassured that Twilight could not be caught in the intense heat radiating from her, Celestia unleashed all her stored up potential, focusing the blast up and directly upon the skeletal claw and the shade trapped within its clutches. The claw blackened, then grew white, then began to glow as more and more sunfire engulfed its form. It shriveled, smoked, began to disintegrate into ash. Just before it faded completely, Celestia thought she heard a cackling laughter over the roar of pure, unfiltered fire. With the energy drained at last, she closed off her connection, and the power died in an instant. Her glow faded, her coat returned to its normal pristine condition. Her pounding heart slowed as, carefully, she lowered herself away from the superheated atmosphere and back to the world of shadows. The laughter continued to echo in her ears, perhaps only a phantom or trick of the imagination. Somehow, she doubted that theory. The boiling ball of fire that had compelled her to act was now nothing but a numbing chunk of ice over her heart. She cast her gaze to the western landscape and saw nothing but impenetrable blackness to the end of her vision. It joined with the empty night sky, a sky devoid of stars and beauty, to create an infinite wall of darkness. A darkness that Twilight Sparkle had been forced to flee into. “Oh, Twilight, why did I let you come with me?” She was still high over the forest, descending steadily towards the smoking semicircle where her fight had begun. Scanning the area revealed no spot of purple amongst the dark fields. Only now did she notice, offhand, that the squirming blackness that had defined this entire journey had disappeared. The land was but land, the shadows mere shadows. She could only assume they had retreated into that great wall, as Twilight had before them. Deep down, Celestia understood that her dear student would not escape the black on her own. As she touched down on the burnt earth before the darkness, she acknowledged that she had only one course of action. Going home was no longer an option, not with Twilight lost. Half hopeful, but aware of the pointlessness of the act, she turned to survey the landscape one last time. Please, Twilight. Reveal yourself. Show me you escaped on your own. Her wishes went unanswered. She brought her attention back to the great darkness that consumed the west. What entities lay waiting within? What new challenges and terrors and truths? Truths. She’d come all this way for truths. The twisting knife in her heart clarified: truths were no longer of any consequence. Twilight… “I will get you out of this. I promise.” With head held high and horn shining bright, Celestia stepped into the dark.