//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Awake // Story: Ashes // by SkyPone //------------------------------// Skyfall… What is it, momma? Promise me that you’ll be brave… What’s wrong momma? Just- Just promise me, my love… I promise momma. I love you Skyfall. I love you too… Skyfall opened his eyes, blinking slowly. Everything was dark, he could barely make out anything besides dull shapes. Dark blurs moved swiftly past, silhouettes of impossibly tall objects shuffling by him. He blinked again, feeling his eyes starting to become heavy. Maybe all the scary things would disappear with a few more moments of sleep… Distant words sparked him back to consciousness, filled with desperation and… Guilt? They were too far to make out, though it was a voice he recognized… He tried to force his eyes open again but a sudden jolt of head-splitting pain prevented it. It nearly knocked him back to the darkness. Sky tried to say something but only a raspy cough escaped his mouth. The sharp jolt in his head, unfortunately, reawakened his body to an onslaught of pain. Though he couldn’t move, he could feel the pain everywhere, like a million tiny needles stabbing into him all at once. Surprisingly the worst of it wasn’t in his head, it was in his back hooves. An army of little rocks was scraping against the back of them. This didn’t make any sense. If he could see maybe he could start piecing things together. After about five seconds and as deep a breath as he could manage Sky braced himself for the inevitable and shot his eyes open. He really wished he didn’t. Blinding pain comparable to a knife piercing his forehead shot through him, a loud scream escaping his mouth. The only thing Sky saw before his head snapped back and his entire body hit the ground were his back hooves dragging and stopping. A piercing scream louder than his own echoed through the wooded trail all around him. The back of his head hitting the ground plus the surprised scream were the perfect combinations to make Sky’s ears ring and fill his vision with stars. If it weren’t for the complete disorientation of the situation he would have screamed again, but the entire world was spinning. That familiar weight on his eyes restarted, his consciousness was fading. He saw a face enter his vision, one he desperately tried to attach a name to. Piercing hazel eyes and bushy mane consumed his world, the same voice from before filling his ears. It sounded like she was saying something… It kept saying one word. Before he could try and make sense of it, his eyes fell shut and darkness took him again… You know that momma will always be with you right Sky? Momma, please… We- we can get help! It’s okay Sky, it’s okay, we’re okay… No! I don’t wanna be alone momma please, I’m not ready… I need you! Sky… You promised you’d be brave, I know you’ll be… I love you so much… No… Please don’t go… Momma, please don’t. Momma, please! It could’ve been hours or entire days before Sky came to again, he couldn’t tell. This time when he woke up things were easy to make out. A dull light filtered through the canopy of dead tree limbs above, illuminating the eerie remains of the forest. Skyfall himself was up against one of the gigantic trees, his head resting against the long-dead trunk. Everything hurt, no exaggerating there. It felt like his entire body had received the beating of a lifetime, save for his head. That felt like someone had hit it with a large and pointy rock. Every time he breathed he could feel the dryness on his tongue, he could taste and smell the metallic coppery flavor of blood. He reached his front hoof up to feel his face, grunting from the dull pain. Blood was all over his face, dried up in his fur and mane. Whatever had caused this had to have been a while ago. Sky groaned softly, smacking his lips together. It took him awhile to realize that it’d been a long time since he had something to drink. He instinctively reached to his side where his canteen would be but found nothing. Trying to remember how he ended up here didn’t result in much. Everything was fuzzy. Sky knew he came here for a reason, and something terrible had happened to make it happen. Where was here though? He was in a forest, surrounded by dead trunks of gigantic trees. It was familiar… A sudden sound made Skyfall snap his head to the right, ears perked up. It was unmistakably the sound of leaves crunching. Sky could feel his breathing start to quicken, though try as he might he wasn’t getting up. The combination of paralyzing fear and overwhelming pain kept him rooted to his spot. Locked to his gaze was the silhouette of a pony, not just any pony. This shadowy Unicorn took another step towards him before he could scream a voice cut him off. A familiar one, a voice that washed all his fears away and caused his head to clear. “Skyfall, you’re awake! Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were never going to wake up…” said Petal. She was beaming, a look of obvious relief on her face. The rest of her didn’t look as good as her smile though. Her body was pretty battered and bruised, though Sky saw no open wounds on her. She was a mess though, her mane and fur were caked with dirt. Sky sighed in relief. Realization quickly replaced it with dread. It all came rushing back to him. He remembered why he was here. Saving Petal, the bandits, the grey husks, the sudden army that seemed to just appear, the mad dash into the Everfree forest, then falling into nothingness… It was almost too much to process. It made Sky’s head hurt worse. Meeting Petal had made his life go from predictable and grueling to uncertain and terrifying at best. Bandits were bad, but a mystical army that could come straight from a tall tale was horrifying. The best part was that they wanted him dead. Him, the nobody Pegasus who had survived for years by scrounging for scraps. Him, the pony whose wings barely worked enough to lift him ten feet from the ground. They didn’t care who he was though, only who he was with. Trying to make sense of Petal was a daunting task, one he wasn’t prepared for. She was the first Unicorn he’d ever seen. Within hours of their meeting he’d seen more than he ever thought possible, and they tried to kill him. It didn’t take a genius to figure that Petal was really who they were after. Why they wanted her so bad was the thing that eluded him. If he was in better shape he’d ask her, but considering he was slumped against a tree in some of the worst pain he’d ever felt intimate conversation wasn’t really his priority. Sky smacked his lips together again, gaining the attention of Petal. She trotted over, Sky noticed a limp in one of her back legs as she approached. She drew his canteen from her side, biting her lip and unscrewing the top. Sky opened his parched mouth and Petal tipped the canteen into his mouth. After about three seconds of drinking, she drew it away. Swishing the water in his mouth, he washed all the dried blood away. He swallowed and exhaled sharply, feeling like he could take in about a hundred canteens full before he would be satisfied. Unfortunately for him, the look on Petal’s face confirmed that he wouldn’t be getting that luxury. He assumed that the water he just had was in and of itself a luxury. Petal shook the canteen, only a tiny swish sounding from it. Sky bit his lip, that definitely wasn’t enough for the both of them. “I went looking for water after I put you against the tree. I didn’t find anything though, this entire place is dead…” she sighed and looked down at the ground, “When we fell I landed on my leg really badly,” she paused, wincing a bit, “But you tumbled down and got hurt all over Sky, I thought you were-” “Dead?” Sky cut in, a sharp edge in his ragged voice. A rising anger towards Petal that had been suppressed by the urgent crisis the last day had brought was resurfacing with a vengeance. The pain surging through his body only seemed to amplify it. He took a shaky breath before continuing. “And who’s fault is that? Maybe I could have been prepared for the army of Unicorn crazies if you would’ve told me about them! We could’ve done something different- Could have made a plan! But instead, you let us walk right up to the edge of this hellhole!” Sky scoffed, “This is the thanks I get for saving your tail from those bandits…” Petal looked stunned, she sniffled and looked down. She looked like she so desperately wanted to say something. The strain on her face was palpable, but when she raised her head and met those brilliant hazel eyes with Sky’s, she only had a look of resolute sadness. “The ponies who attacked us are called the Void Commission… They’re beyond even the worst ponies you’ve ever met before. They make those bandits look like saints…” She struggled and winced with every word like it caused her great pain to open her mouth. She took a deep breath and looked at the ground again, tears brimming in her eyes. The anger that surged through Sky only a moment before was being replaced by disbelief and fear, but also regret for snapping on her like that. This Void Commission had obviously done something to her. Judging from the difficulty she was having with even mentioning them it was something awful. He knew how hard it was to be hunted by bandits, but ponies like that were in a league of their own. The thought returned him to his original question though… Who was she? “Petal, why are they after you?” Sky said in a much softer tone than before, giving her a sympathetic look to try and convey his regret. The question seemed to catch Petal off guard. She simply stared at Skyfall for a moment, her eyes looking hollow and her expression haunted. This simple look gave Sky a small hint of the pain she was feeling, but her words cemented his suspicions. “I escaped from them…” she gulped and sniffled before continuing, “They did tests on me, but it backfired on them. They tried to make me do magic by- by torturing me… They called it an ’instinct activation’. But it worked too well, I did do magic. One second I was there and then…” she sighed, “You know the rest.” She exhaled sharply and sat down in front of Sky. He could see her shaking and her lips trembling. There was something else though in her eyes. It almost looked like she was relieved, she wasn’t so tense anymore. Sky knew how bottling things up felt, he still did. “I’m sorry Petal,” he said, “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you… It’s just I’ve never experienced anything like this. I’ve been on my own for years, life has been mostly the same. Then you come in and change everything. You didn’t even try to kill me. I know how difficult it is to talk to a pony…Especially if you have nopony to talk to,” he gave her a faint smile and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Petal gave him a smile, shakily getting up and coming to sit next to him. Even though the two of them were stuck in this situation with no plan, at least they had this. Sky had never really had a friend before, and he assumed that Petal probably hadn’t seen a nice pony in a very long time. The two of them just sat there for awhile in comfortable silence letting the issues at hand fade away for awhile. Sky wished the moment had lasted forever. But in this world, nothing ever did. A voice neither of them had ever heard before sounded right behind them followed by the sound of many sets of hooves quickly scuffling across dead leaves. “How touching.”