////////Azazel////////
"Time for a story."
The figure that called himself, "Saros Cycle" stated. As we silently traversed through the woods on a dirt road, Saros spoke again.
"Once upon a time, there was young boy who had a family. This boy came from a family of four. He came from a world devoid of magic and monsters."
He explained. As I listened to the beginning of his tale, I noticed something was following us. It was another vehicle much like the one I was riding on. He slowed down the machine to ride side by side the identical truck.
"He had a father, a mother, and their two sons."
When he spoke, I could make out the humans inside the vehicles darkly tinted windows. A human male of caucasian skin color with short blonde hair and blue eyes sat in the same chair as Saros and drove the identical vehicle in the same position as he did. Their right arm on the head rest of their neighboring chair and their left on the helm.
On said neighboring chair, sat a human female with a muddy brown color of skin, jet black hair and green eyes. My eyes nearly popped out of my skull in surprise when I saw two children bearing a vague resemblance to their parents sitting across from each other in the back. One brother was slightly bigger than the other, and the smaller one had a slightly lighter creamy brown skin, long, dark, wavy hair, and brown eyes.
He had a navy blue shirt and trousers made of a tough, sky blue fabric. The larger of the two wore glasses made of a glass like material and was dressed in a shirt with floral patterns and pants made out of the same tough looking fabric.
The boys in the cargo bed were seated in between large bags. A box like wagon that was chained and towed by the larger blue vehicle I had not seen before caught my eye.
"While they had their good and bad moments alike, the boy did not complain, as he was content with the family he had. His life was simple and he cherished that."
As the masked narrator told his story, the truck besides us picked up speed and left us in the dust. Soon after, we were once again alone on the dirt path.
"His family would go on camping trips every year on the day of the older sibling's birth. They would go to a place in the far north and camp at the foot of a large hill that oversaw a sizeable lake born from a nearby river."
The sun had gone down only a bit and once we cleared the forest, the dirt transformed into a flat road paved out of some form of volcanic rock. We were riding along the side of a mountain, as I could see we were at a very high altitude.
In the distance, I could see mountain tops blanketed with snow. I could see an endless expanse of trees, and at the center of it all, was a lake of irregular shape, easily a mile wide and three miles long. On the far side of it I could make out the small river that fed the lake with another on its opposite side draining it.
I could only admire nature's beauty and scale with a slacked jaw that only accentuated how small I felt. Paying no mind to this, Saros continued.
"Little did the boy know that this camping trip would be his last. His family arrived by noon at their preferred camping grounds and set everything in order and had a wonderful day."
He stated. My remarkable view of the landscape before me was suddenly obscured with a grey stone wall and darkness as I failed to realize were had driven straight into a tunnel. The vehicle we were on shot from two cones of light that illuminated the otherwise pitch black abyss were in from the glass covered "eyes".
"After having everything in order, the father and older son would go to catch fish by the lake while the mother and younger son went looking for something to capture in the form of a painting. The mother would bring her brushes and paints along with a canvas to paint and teach the younger son how to make art with a few buckets of paint and a brush."
As we traversed through the winding tunnel, the air got noticably colder. Not enough for it to warrant serious concern, but enough to unsettle me. Some time later, we came out of the tunnel to find that the sun was setting at an alarming rate. We drove in silence for a while longer before reaching a clearing.
The blue truck from before was there, though the contents in the back were gone. Saros drove the strange wagon besides it's doppelganger, and after pulling a few levers and twisting something beneath the helm, the engine ceased it's rumbling. The machine stood deathly still until Saros opened the door from before and stepped out, causing it to sway and jerk slightly when he shut the door.
I shifted uncomfortably, as not knowing what he would do or say next had me on edge. He walked for a few more steps before stopping. He stayed motionless for a few seconds before turning in my direction.
"Come."
He ordered in a soft, yet firm tone. I hesitated, but after a few moments of indecision I climbed off the cargo bed and stood before him. We walked for a bit, seemingly with no specific destination.
However, that theory was proven to be false as we soon came upon a pair of strange looking tents and a bonfire. I stopped to take in the sight before me. The father and older son were cooking fish over the gentle embers on a metallic skillet.
The display made my heart sink as I was reminded of the fact that something like this would never happen to me. Saros, who had been standing nearby, tugged on my arm with hands that were as cold as ice.
"Come. We will only show you this once."
He said in a voice that projected indifference, but turning to see his soul, I saw pain that's been buried for a very long time.
"Show me what?"
I asked, my face contorting in accordance with my growing confusion as to what could possibly be the reason for showing me whatever would happen next only once.
"The moment the boy died... And we were born..."
He said, his voice a near whisper. My face relaxed and then showed the embarrassment I felt for being so blunt. It didn't take much for me to realize it would be better if I simply let him show me, than to prod for more verbally.
I nodded and with that we walked out of the small encampment and headed eastward. Silence took over as we reached the foot of a steep hill. It loomed at much the same height as the rest of the mighty pine trees.
Saros took to the air without so much as a simple gesture of his hands. The star filled wrappings around his arms glowed and shimmered with arcane power. He floated several meters off the ground before gesturing for me to follow with his hand.
I've flown before, but I had never attempted to hover in place. Nodding, I stretched my wings and and pulled in the surrounding air with my magic. After a minute or two, a swirling vortex of leaves, dust, and odd pine cones began to swirl around my body as I was slowly lifted off the ground by the wind.
With much effort I followed him up the steep incline and reached the top. As I released the air holding me aloft, I fell only a foot or two on my feet with a muffled thud. Saros who had already made it to the top, was standing a small ways away with his back turned to me.
Now that I stood at an altitude, I immediately assessed my surroundings. The oddly steep hill had a beautiful vantage point that allowed one to see the expanse of trees without feeling overly distant. The mountains in the distance looked larger and much more imposing than before as their darkened forms cut into the beautiful sky just before nightfall. The orange-yellow sky surrounding the crimson sphere of the sun was layered with tones of red, periwinkle, lilac, and muave that accentuated the dark greenery of trees that surrounded us as of we were one of these of these peaceful giants.
I walked over to Saros and in front of him, was a small boy of creamy brown skin color, and black wavy hair with his back turned to us trying his best to recreate nature's masterpiece on the canvas. Behind the boy, stood his mother, the human female from before.
"The boy did not know chaos had other plans... plans of nonsensical insanity for his amusement."
Saros explained, sounding weary and bitter. He struggled to make himself seem indifferent to this story, but I could bet my life on the chance that under his mask he was shedding tears. Just as I was about to see if my theory was correct, I felt something that made every part of my body collectively scream "DANGER!!!".
A few meters away from us, the fabric of reality was torn, and simply looking at the portal that was created from that tear gave me a migraine that forced me to take a knee.
"MOM!?"
I heard the voice of a worried child say before I felt a telekinetic grip clutch my torso. I was then knocked off my feet and was pulled towards the portal.
Acting on instinct alone I buried my talons into the ground. Saros, grabbed onto my arms without saying a word and held fast. The pulling on my body was getting stronger and stronger, and eventually the ground beneath my feet gave way. I was suspended in the air, holding on only by Saros' hands on mine.
I struggled to hold onto Saros' hands, and I nearly lost my grip when I saw that the mother was standing a few feet away from my anchor. They were standing in the exact same manner and she moved exactly the same way he did. The boy was holding onto his mother for all he was worth and was screaming his head off out of fear.
"MOM!!! PLEASE!!! DON'T LET GO OF ME!!! MOM!!!"
The boy cried as his hands began to falter. After a few seconds of the magical grip tugging harder and harder, I knew I would not be able to hold on for much longer. The moment I lost my grip, so did the boy.
"MATTHEW NOOOOOOO!!!"
The mother screamed as she lost her footing and fell on her back. Saros mimicked the motion as I lost my grip.
"MOOOOOM!!!"
The boy's screams were the last thing I heard before I was hurled through the portal with the boy not so far behind. As I sailed through the edges of two planes of existence, I lost all notion of time, direction and nearly lost consciousness from the overwhelming of my senses when I made it through to the other side.
I sailed through the air for a bit more and crashed into something hard. When I stopped feeling queasy, i looked up to behold a creature that forced me to question the odds of me hitting my head so heard and not feeling pain. It was... a living miscellany of animal parts.
It had the head and neck of a goat, yellow eyes with red irises, and mismatched horns. It had a long, snake like body covered in fur and seemed to be standing upright. It's right... paw resembled that of a mountain lion while it's left... appendage was more of a chicken leg.
It's right leg was much like my own legs, with the exceptions of it being covered in green scales and being much smaller. It's left leg resembled that of a ram or a mountain goat. It's tail was by far the oddest of it's limbs. It looked to be that of a velvet dragon tail, but it had a rather large tuft of white-ish hair.
It was levitating a few feet off the ground with the boy suspended just in front of it.
"Hmmm, that's odd... I could've sworn I was summoning an Eldritch horror from Lovecraft's world. Not... whatever this monkey thing is."
It... no, HE said with a haughty chuckle.
"Oh well, when life gives you lemons-"
He started, charging up his magic into his arms.
"You turn those lemons into an eldritch lemonade!"
He stated with an evil grin plastered on his face. The living hodgepodge unleashed bolts of white magic onto the boy which made me wince away. I felt power in this creature. Power that felt akin to that of argent energy, but... much more refined.
As the creature was unleashing it's magic on the now convulsing boy, I saw two blurs, one of dark blue and another of white land before me. Shakily rising to my feet, I found myself standing behind Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.
Luna was clad in silver boots and armor that surrounded her barrel while also allowing her to use her wings. Celestia wore a similar suit of armor but made of the same golden metal as that of the guards in her palace instead.
"Discord! You're reign of terror ends tod-"
Celestia began before being interrupted by the creature letting out loud groan of annoyance.
"Oh Celestia. I really do enjoy watching you take yourself so seriously, but now I'm a little preoccupied. Can we reschedule our weekly confrontation for next Tuesday?"
The strange creature who was apparently named Discord, explained as he dropped the now conscious boy to the ground. He seemed to manifest a small journal, an inkwell, and strange multicolored feather that was far to big to be practical along with a pair of comically small glasses with a magical "poof" out of nowhere.
"His body aching with pain and his mind plague by fear, the boy took the opportunity he had to flee, and ran for his life."
From my right a familiar voice appeared. I turned to my right and saw Saros standing beside me. As the princesses dueled the strange creature with magic, the boy scurried to his feet and ran into the trees until he disappeared from sight. Saros suddenly bolted after the him, and not long after did I do the same.
Following Saros, I ran for what felt like an hour, all while the sound of explosions and magic were errupting behind us. Once I gained enough distance that the sound of magical warfare could not be heard, Saros stopped a small ways away from the boy who had apparently fallen and had the wind knocked out of him.
Halting besides my masked tour guide, I tried to catch my breath. When I could finally breathe normally, I saw the boy get up, rub his head and begin to look around for something. The boy's eyes now glowed with an unnatural turquoise glow that seemed out of place and unsurprisingly, very familiar.
"The boy was alone, scared and transformed. Not knowing what to do, he picked a random direction, and began to walk."
Saros explained, the boy doing exactly as he had foretold.
"He wondered the wilderness for days, surviving off whatever fruits he could find. He hid in the trees and stayed out of sight. Lest he be devoured by wolves of tinder and chased by a mighty manticore."
What felt like whole weeks going by flashed before my eyes as the world sped up to ludicrous speeds around us. We followed him through the forest and I saw him take refuge in the branches of a large oak tree. As the days went on, the boy got thinner and more malnourished. He seemed tired and when the world returned to it's normal speed, he spent most of his time, resting against the tree's root.
"Then one day, a familiar creature came by and instead of death, offered her friendship."
As he spoke an apparition of Luna walked right through my back and out my chest towards the boy. The boy then grew fearful, but remained still on the ground.
Luna simply looked at him with an expression of pity on her face. She then proceeded to offer her hoof with a friendly smile. The boy hesitated, but he weakly clambered to his feet and hobbled over to the princess of the night. The two then walked away, leaving me alone with Saros.
"The creature that saved him from death by starvation was a dreamwalker, a slayer of nightmares, and the mistress of the night."
He explained, his turquoise eyes fixated on me.
"She nursed him back to health in secret and raised him as her own foal after he told her everything. As the days turned to weeks, which then turned to months, and then to years, the boy came to regard the princess like a mother. The best he could ever ask for in a world that was not his own..."
Saros' gaze did not break away from me as he clapped his hands. I felt a wave of vertigo come and go as we were teleported into a large building made of stone and hidden in a deeper part of the same forest. Luna was sitting on the ground, now watching a slightly older version of the boy try to recreate the beautiful tapestry of stars and constellations the was above him. She seemed happy.
"Deep in the heart of the Everfree, the princess of the night had somepony that admired her and loved her night. This kept the resentment towards the subjects that neglected her and her beautiful night at bay."
Saros continued, turning to look at Luna with longing in his eyes.
"As time went on, the boy's power grew unstable. Fortunately, with the help of Star Swirl the Bearded, the boy learned to hone his power and became the most powerful stormcaller in Equestria."
Before I could even register it, Saros clapped his hands again. The same disorienting sensation came and went in an instant. As the world stopped spinning, I realized we were standing in a closed stone arena about sixty feet in diameter with a dirt floor.
The boy, now clad in light armor, was dueling Star Swirl. The boy would bob and weave around Star Swirl's blasts of magic. Ducking under one blast of Star Swirl's, the boy extended his hand, releasing an arc of sustained lightning from his finger tips slammed into a shield Star Swirl was able to conjure up at the last possible second.
The arching bolts of raw electrical magic crackled and screamed with power as they struck the translucent, alabastor dome of magic that protected Star Swirl. After the boy stopped the pattern of dodging magic bolts and waiting for an opening resumed and repeated itself two more times before I noticed Princess Luna was sitting nearby, watching the boy fight.
I missed the moment the boy was caught off guard, as I heard the boy yelp in pain before hitting the ground with a resounding thud. I turned to find him on his knees, clutching his abdomen.
"Ow..."
The boy groaned.
"You've improved young prince, but you need more practice."
Star Swirl stated, walking over to him and offering him a hoof. Taking it, the boy rose to his feet and looked in my direction. It caught me a bit off guard, but not as much as Luna's form phasing through me to walk over to him.
"Thou ar't doing well, son. We are very pleased to see you come so far."
She proclaimed lovingly, nuzzling her head under his chin. The boy, who stood at much the same height as Luna, wrapped his arms around her and embraced her.
"I should get going. I have finish preparing a certain lesson I have for you and your sister your majesty."
Star Swirl explained with a warm smile and small bow. Luna nodded and with the boy and the wisened pony wizard in tow, they left the arena as a wall seemingly made of solid bricks began to disassemble itself to reveal a passage way. I was left alone with Saros looking out at empty space. He did not move at all and the silence that filled the now baren arena was making me very uncomfortable.
"Saros?..."
I hesitantly asked. Saros said nothing as he slowly raised his hands and clapped twice. After one more nauseating teleportation, we stood in a bed room that housed a single bed, a desk with packed bookshelves lining the walls and what I assumed to be a walk-in wardrobe. The room was vacant, only me and Saros were in the room and I began to look around. The near endless supply of book on the shelves had writing on their spines in a language I did not recognize, most likely the common written language of Equestria.
I then walked over to the desk and found the same mask Saros was wearing, but in a much better condition. The mask was of a pure white, the eyeholes were not cracked or splintered, and the floral patterns around the edges were still unpainted. Besides the mask, an inkwell, and the odd paint brush, there were scrolls of varying sizes. I tried to grab one of the larger ones and to my delight, it was tangible. Unrolling the parchment I found it to be a map of constellations. Before I could investigate further, the door leading outside the room opened with a very irate looking human on the other side.
The boy stormed in, his turquoise eyes flickered with the wrath of a god of thunder that froze me to my core. I moved out of his way, "allowing" him to sit down on his desk and begin to ventilate his frustrations by slamming his fists onto the desk and unceremoniously sweeping everything that was on it to the floor.
As he breathed heavily through his nose and stared at the wall emptily I heard the sound of hoof steps drawing nearer. Shortly, Luna appeared through the door.
"It is all right my son. It does not matter if Tia does not wish for an equally divided day and night cycle. It matters little to us."
Luna explained. I could tell by the look on her face that she was lying, and so did the boy, despite having his back turned to her.
"YES IT DOES!!!"
The boy angrily shouted. There was silence for a moment, before I heard the pitter pattering sound of tears hitting a wooden surface. The boy turned to look at the diarch of the night with tears flowing down his cheeks.
"Mother... Why can't you see that Celestia is using you?..."
He began, visibly straining to keep his sobs in check.
"Celestia is adored by all of her subjects while you receive nothing when you have to face things that are deadlier a hundredfold! She does not values the hard work you put in to make a unique design of stars EVERY NIGHT! It is a miracle she spared our life when she discovered you and Star Swirl were raising and training us. She treats me like a weapon without a heart that can be broken and a mind that can't be scarred! Celestia wants us dead and to be stripped away from you... I know the horrible nightmares you have to fight every single night by yourself for ponies that take you for granted... I... I can't bear to live like this anymore... I can't bear see them treat you like this... I can't lose you... I..."
Falling to his knees in defeat, the damn of pain he had been repressing with his anger finally broke as he wept openly. Luna, who had been trying to keep her composure as well, sat besides the boy, wrapping a wing around him.
The boy instantaneously latched onto her barrel for dear life and drenched her coat with fresh tears. If Luna noticed, she did not care. She held him close and whispered sweet nothings into his ear to ease the burden they shared. The sight of those two forced me to my knees.
It took me a bit to realize that I too was crying at the display of affection before me. Before me was a child, feeling impotent to help the one and only person he cares about while she holds him in a loving embrace...
"You have made our life so rich in happiness. Know that you are loved, and nothing will ever separate us. We promise you this."
Luna stated, while tears flowed from her eyes, they were not of pain. They were tears of joy. She kiss her son's forehead and with a flash of blue magic from her horn, the two now held a serene expression on their faces.
"On that fateful evening, the mistress of the night taught the boy how to dominate the dreamscape as she did. For countless nights thereafter, the boy would be by his mother's side. Fighting the nightmares of Equestria's ponies. Day in... Day out..."
Turning to look at Saros, he was sitting on the bed looking at the pair. His mask continued to obscure his face, but his soul... it was slowly cracking and splintering at the apparitions before it.
"The ponies of Equestria would soon call the boy by a new name, the Nightmare's Bane. Once this new title was given to nightmare slaying dreamwalker and the diarchs presented him to the public. One diarch was excited for this, the other was not. Celestia's most loyal instilled fear into the hearts of ponies, and soon, the sweet promise of a life out of the shadows, revealed themselves to be naught but ash..."
Saros spoke in a quiet tone, shame and melancholy present in his voice. I got up and stood beside him. I placed a hand on his shoulder, as it was the only thing I could think of doing.