//------------------------------//
// Amberhill 
// Story: Stars in the Sky 
// by Book_Wyrm 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 4 

Starry roused herself from her slumber at about seven in the evening. Amethyst slept next to her, her chest rising and falling evenly. Her face was calm. Starry rose after watching her sleeping friend for a short while. She watched the sunset, the pinks and reds splashed across the sky, fading to blues and purples as the evening wore on. When the moon had risen, she woke Amethyst. 
The two mares traveled through the night. Amethyst was better for a long rest when she wasn’t high on adrenaline, excitement, and fear. She kept up easier and asked for fewer breaks. They had walked twenty-five miles by the time the sun rose. By that point, they were walking on a dirt path leading west. Starry knew it as the road into Amberhill, if road it could be called.  
Starry decided that their hiding spot should be out of sight, while within close proximity to the road. As they ducked into a small grove of trees well of the road, Amethyst commented, “How do you always seem to know where’s the best hiding spot?” 
“Practice.” Starry muttered dryly.  
“You must be really good at escaping.” 
“I’ve gotten that way. When traveling for a long time, you can’t exactly guarantee that those you meet will obey the law, so you can’t always.” The first time she had truly broken the law had been in Dragonvale. She had gotten in a brawl with a couple of drunk dragons, broke a few bones, and had spent three months in a jail cell before escaping. That she was wanted there didn’t matter, of course, because Dragonvale was three thousand years gone.  





They spent the day hidden, each lost in their own thoughts or sleeping.  Once they heard the sounds of heavy hoof steps and cowered in the bushes for five minutes, staying silent until the stranger was long gone. When evening finally settled in, they started out on the last stage of their journey.  
The final leg was much shorter, about ten miles. They reached the outskirts of Amberhill as the moon reached its peak. Stopping at the edge of town, the two mares stared, mouths open. The village, or what remained of it, was burned. Charred husks of buildings loomed out of the darkness, and bodies were scattered throughout, burned to a crisp. Starry was speechless, while Amethyst leaned over and unceremoniously threw up into a pile of debris.  
“Shit. What happened here?” Amethyst whispered, her voice a petrified squeak. All Starry could do was stare mutely around her. She had seen battlefields, with the dead and dying covering them in blood and bodies. But why would somepony burn down a village like Amberhill, a little nowhere place. There was no reason. The fire was not an accident, there was too much damage. No accidental fires killed an entire town. She knew there had to be some explanation.  
“Come on, we should search for any...” she did not finish her sentence. Something told her that nopony had escaped the flames. Amethyst nodded, though she was looking a little gray. They wandered the ruins, looking for anything, any survivors. All they found were ruin and dust, ashes floating away on the stirring breeze.  
Starry began to haul a few bodies from the rubble. She told Amethyst to start digging a grave by the road, a task which the unicorn was more than willing to do to escape the sight and stench of fire and death.  As she pulled the blackened corpse of a little filly from the ashes, Starry wept. What kind of monster would do this to innocent ponies, innocent foals? She knew that when she caught them, they would burn, burn in a fire like nothing else. She was grateful for the magic inside her that would allow her to do that, that would allow her to burn the monster in the fire of a raging star. She thought of this as she hauled body after body into the grave that Amethyst had dug. After all the ponies had been placed in the grave, from infants to elders, they began their work on covering it. Once that was done, Starry moved a large stone over to the howe, planting it in the soil. Using her light blue magic, she carved the words, ‘Here lie the one-hundred and three residents. of Amberhill. They were taken from us in the year 1653 E.R., due to a fire. May they rest always in peace.’ 
Standing there, Starry offered them a prayer. “May you be taken up, into the eternal wings of the Father of Night, and there find rest from all labor. There you will find joy, and no sorrow shall ever trouble you again. May you race through the fields of the sky, your spirits forever set among the twinkling stars.” Amethyst whispered the age-old words along with her as they stared at the tomb.  
Numb, Starry looked up. The moon was just touching the horizon. It seemed appropriate for them to have been buried in the dark, so they could better find their way into the hooves of Father Night, keeper of the beloved dead. Even if they had no families left to mourn their passing, these ponies deserved the best his land could offer. She planted a gold bit into the ground, an offering to the dead, and  Amethyst planted flowers in a circle around it. 
“we should go,” Starry said quietly. Amethyst nodded silently, and the two began to walk along the path leading out of town. They traveled in quiet, not thinking of the fact that they journeyed in broad daylight. Starry could not stop seeing the town, the rubble and corpses, and the scent of burned flesh still filled her nostrils. So oblivious was she, that she didn't hear the black and gray stallion in the bushes before they were nearly on top of him.  
In haste she threw up a shield. His magic shattered through it. Magic-breaker, she realized, her only thought before she lay on the ground with him on top of her, a knife to her throat. 
“Do you know who destroyed my home? Tell me, do you?” He screamed, fear and rage and sorrow lacing every word. 
“No,” Starry breathed out, “I just came from Amberhill. We were heading there, and all we found was ruin.” She shuddered, even as he held the blade to her. Finally, he let her up. Rising, she looked at Amethyst, who was standing frozen behind her. “Can you tell us what happened?” she asked.  
“I guess,” he snarled. “My name is Shadow Shield. Things happened so suddenly, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. It was mid afternoon. Everypony was just going about as normal. I was on the edge of town, sitting in the glade, when I heard screaming. I saw a great shadow, and suddenly everything was burning. The town went up in flames, a big blaze. I hid in the glade, watching the town go, the ponies dying. The shadow cut down anypony who tried to escape, threw them into the flames. There was so much screaming, and the stink of burning flesh and hair was like nothing I ever smelled. I cowered in the woods, helpless to save anypony. The little filly I used to help with her homework... Oh gods, watching her slowly burn was like nothing I've ever seen, and hope to never see anything like that ever again. When all was quiet, I snuck back into the village. Right in the town square was this symbol, which faded even as I looked at it. It was a white S, on a big black star, and behind that a sword. I think it was a cutie mark.” 
Starry gasped. She stared at him. “what did you say?” 
“The symbol in the square was a big S, on a black star with a sword. Wait, do you know what monster did this.” 
“Not a monster. The monster. The original one. I need to get a message to the princesses, and more importantly, the Queen.” 






	Epilogue 


	 

Princess Celestia watched the messenger rush into the room. “an urgent message for Princess Luna,” he shouted, “It just appeared in the main hall!” 
“what is it?” her sister asked, grabbing the scroll from him. She opened in and read it, her face going from slightly worried to outright panic. 
“What does it say, sister?” Celestia asked. 
“The message says, ‘You need to evacuate now. There is a huge danger and you two must escape.’” 
“But we couldn’t leave our ponies. Anything else?” 
“It finishes, ‘Trust me Princess Luna, you know me, you know how serious this is. -signed, All the Stars in the Sky.” 
“What does that mean?” 
“It means that we need to get out of here right fucking now.” 
“Why?” 
“Because I know who wrote this, and if she thinks it's important, then it is.” 
Celestia was beginning to agree. Whatever this was scaring her sister to the point of making her curse, and very little scared Luna. “Still, we can’t leave our ponies undefended from whatever this threat is.” 
“No, we can’t. So, whatever's going to happen, we’d better prepare for one hell of a ride.”