“Somepony once said that what make us truly beings is in what we do, not who we are deep within. And what I can tell is that I totally agree. Death is not the outcome of making bad choices. Death is the unwanted child of emptiness of choice.
Whatever the outcome of a choice, that it wages destruction and disgrace upon us, or that it spreads in our heart hopes and valour, a choice is always praiseworthy. Because making a choice is so difficult, because it doesn’t only commit yourself but the ponies around you, because a choice is a change and a change is a bearer of fears, because a choice is a trail to ruin, or renewal… And of course, because a choice is what writes down the scrolls of fate our own story and those we carry with us.
Ponies are meant to go beyond the obstacles and ordeals that are thrust on their path. This is why we make choices, sometimes. Otherwise we just die and fall in the ditches bordering the way, only to be forgotten. Henceforth, we could draw a line between the ponies who do decisions and choices, and those who don’t. However this mere discrimination is too simple. We have to go beyond such, if I want to repeat myself, simple-minded truth. It is just our accepted belief.
The truth is that there are, among us, ponies we could call ‘frontrunners’ and other we could name ‘icebreakers’. Throughout eras and ages, only a hoof full of ponies had been given the hammer to shape the fate of Ponykind. Only a few were given the right to decide of the present and future of all. A future that somehow, came to be the world we live in right now.
Among these ponies were admirals, warriors, heroes, peace-bringers or warmongers, conquerors and leaders, idealists and egotists. And all had only one idea anchored, not only in their mind but also in their true soul. An idea that drove them to do great or despicable deeds. Some wanted to hear once in their lifetime the rattle of weapons and horseshoes on barren lands of endless sorrows. Some only desired to listen to the peaceful chirping of the paradise birds over the green meadows of the world, away from the growls of Tartarus.
All were motivated to fulfil this wish. And all made a fateful choice that changed everything. But among them were the frontrunners and the icebreakers, two opposed kind of ponies.
The frontrunners are the most impressive ponies that we could ever meet. They break barriers, overthrow records and stomp the scorched soils of their times, claiming the world as theirs. For their own ideas, they will lead, they will fight, they will kill and they will die. For their ideas, they will run to the war, first to come and last to away, first to cry out and last to weep. Yet, they are only frontrunners. They stand only for their ideas, for themselves. They go through the ordeals and predicaments all alone. They will survive whatever the costs. They will fight whatever the causalities, and they will sacrifice anything for their ideas. For these ponies, everything has a price on the altar of their biggest dreams… their greatest sins. And this, in the end, will consume their soul, making them monsters.
The icebreakers are scarce among the ponies that stand out of the anonymous crowd. This makes them even more precious than they are fragile. Like the frontrunners, they face and stand still in front of events that shatter realms and break worlds apart. They are the instigators of change. Their deeds are epoch-making and will bring the greats to their knees only to give us a new dawn of time, a fresh start. They do move forward as they will walk through rain and fire. They cross the seas and climb mountains to give what they think right its rightful place within the cosmic order. They are the ponies we need when the darkest corners of the world are filled with unspoken and atrocious monsters. They are the ponies that fight in the dark, the ones that go forward.
But unlike the frontrunners, they do not fight only for their desires, they also fight for principles they may not understand clearly. Yes, they are the ponies we need… but do we deserve them? They do not run for themselves. They break the ice. They open the way, pave it and mark it out for the ponies that follow them. They share their treasures and keep the burdens for themselves. They are the biggest insult Ponyking could spit on the face of Fate, as they are the one that can break destiny itself. Icebreakers carry worlds on their shoulders. But even titans of steel, they have feet of clay. They rise, fight and fall like flies. But the print they leave on the world remains indelible.
Ponies choose to be frontrunners as they hold their desires higher than anything else, and will never yield. Ponies do not choose to be icebreaker, but they do choose to accept this plight. They choose to carry the desires that may not be theirs on their shoulders because they know, or at least think, it’s what has to be done. Icebreakers are not heroes; they may carry the wrong answers to the world. Yet, they are the ones that open the way. Because we all know deep within our souls that we are all ashamed by this simple truth:
‘We are all waiting for sompony’s hoof to help us out of our own misery.’
We are hoping for this fateful hoof. And this is why icebreakers are wonders among the frontrunners that are themselves beads among ponies. They did not choose to be in this situation, but they do choose to get it together and fight, not for themselves, but for others… for the weak.
We are all hoping for this helping hoof, yet we are not ready to make any choice. So, here is my question: ‘Will you choose to stay weak? Will you choose to be a frontrunner? Or will you accept to pave the way for others? Even if this means you will die!’
Candelabra”
The chiaroscuro cavern was swamped with an increasingly emetic smell. Corpses were piled up across the dirty floor and only one light poured from the arc-light hung to the natural ceiling. The beams reverberated onto the gems blanketing the walls. Diffracted, the light cast shadows of blue, green and purple everywhere in the cold chamber.
A group of military pegasi was inspecting, with caution, the grim spectacle with a macabre and scientific interest. They were a dozen, sporting the symbol of the Direction on the armour protecting their flank and stiffs, an identical washed-out blue bolt of lightning piercing a black rock. The emblem had no real signification, but for most of the pegasi, it represented justice and force. Valour that could slay the strongest enemies that could be found. But at the moment the only enemies in sight were dead bodies strewn across the cave. And the atmosphere was darkening bit by bit as nopony could solve the mystery revolving around their deaths.
“What caused all this mess?” one of the pegasus asked dryly, tired from taking care of some earthbounds’ remains.
“I have strictly no idea Lieutenant,” a private displaying a red cross on his shoulder responded. He was clearly not at ease. “I… I just don’t see any wound that would have killed them. They aren’t like the ones found dead in the first part of the cave; those ones only have bruises and burns from the arc explosion. These ponies died from something else.”
The soldier hesitated. Throwing away his disclosed disgust, he rolled a corpse over, giving its face to see. It was a dead stallion. Moreover, it was disfigured by a silent scream of agony. The state of the body was hard to describe. His eyes had shrunk like dried fruits. His flesh and skin had withered like an old and wrinkled parchment. Its tongue was dangling out of his mouth like a loose leather strap, ripped off by its charcoal teeth. Somehow, the body had been mummified. Yet, the stains of blood that had dripped on his collier’s barding were still fresh.
“There is neither internal organ deficiency nor haemorrhage,” the forensic continued. He was perplexed. “They just died.”
“That’s nonsense,” the lieutenant sighed, shovelling his anger down his throat. “It’s like they’ve been cooked on the hoof.”
“Not even, they just… died there.”
Not satisfied with the coroner’s answer, the lieutenant left him to his work and walked past a few other groups of Direction’s investigators. Nearly all of them were teamed up in duo. After a minute, he stood in front of a pegasus. He was encircled by two of his peers. He had hoofcuffs and was mumbling curses.
His comrades glanced at the lieutenant’s eyes and gulped. One of them tapped his restrained friend’s shoulder, who looked up. A pony could not be paler. By instinct, the soldier’s stare riveted on his hooves, not daring looking again at his chief. The lieutenant could read through emotionless faces like open books, he was used to such play.
“What happened soldier?”
The questioned pegasus kicked a rock away and swallowed his saliva. He gave a long and slow breath afterward.
“I nearly got them, Lieutenant, those little…” he blurted and stopped, seeing his superior was looking at him with a hard face. “Oh, sorry Sir. I’m just… I just messed up.”
“Care to explain?”
“I was the first one to go down the stairs. Pegasi can’t fly in the pit, it’s too narrow. I was the first to see the scene,” he muttered before raising his head, only to stare into his lieutenant’s eyes with a pitiful look. “Two young ponies’d intruded the mine with nopony noticing. I just don’t know how they went down here without being caught. And… they did something in that cave.”
The soldier pointed the wall of gems surrounding a creepy scene that would give nightmares to more than one.
“They activated some shit and I saw a pony talking, as if a pictograph was hidden somewhere.”
His curiosity tickled, the lieutenant cut off the soldier before he could go on with his story.
“And you let them fly away?”
“They…” The soldier wanted to burst out but lowered his eyes instead. “They just jumped into the underground river hole right there.” He waved a hoof toward a corner of the cave. A small stream was flowing in a wide crack. “I was too big to follow them.”
The lieutenant inspected the wall, many gems had been shattered by an explosion and were lying on the ground, scattered among the corpses. He screwed his eyes and inspected something hidden beyond the dirt. It was the tip of a pegasus weapon.
“You… You used an arc-spear?” the lieutenant toned harshly in the shameful soldier’s direction.
“Understand me, Sir. I… I tried to stop them!”
“And you destroyed something extremely important in the process. Well done,” the high-ranked pony berated, nearly clapping his hooves. “I’ll take care of you and your lack of discipline later…”
Again, the soldier’s face went pallid. Following the Lieutenant’s mood, he knew he could end with his head at the end of a spear for this mistake. He shuddered, trying to cast away the gory idea.
The muffled sound of hurried hoofsteps clattered in the tunnel nearby. It was noisy enough to be heard from afar. The lieutenant turned over and left the arrested soldier alone. He stood in the frame of the hole arcs had opened and waited. Another soldier leaped through the metallic staircase in the back of the tunnel. He was limping, holding his bleeding side with a hoof.
“Lieutenant! You need to know!” He panted and winced under the pain. “The Duma’s been bombed by insurgents.”
Many heads rose in the cavern, hung onto the newcomer’s words. Tension crystallized the ponies around. If it was true, the situation was more than serious. Everypony wanted to know the next developments.
“Earthbounds’re revolting again. It’s complete panic above us. We need all forces available to restore order. A chain of command has to be restored,” he cried out.
The lieutenant stared blankly at the pony a few seconds. He shook his head.
“Anything else that matters?” he asked, his throat dried.
“My team got what we think to be the bombers with their close families.”
The lieutenant’s face brightened. A grin sliced his face from ear to ear.
“When?”
“Maybe half an hour ago.”
“You got them all!?”
The soldier running with sweat sat down and inhaled.
The massive chunk that served as the door of the cottage burst inward. The sound of exploding wood left no doubt about it. Standing stunned on the second floor, Little One, Fire and his family heard soldiers enter. They smashed furniture and doors alike, searching for somepony, yapping like enraged dogs. Everypony felt sweat rolling off their faces.
A foal started crying below. Fire’s family was not the only inhabitants of the house. Unfortunately, the ponies on the first floor would pay for some deeds they were not even aware of. Louds bangs echoed. The foal’s cry stopped all of a sudden. The silence left behind was deafening, sickening.
Fire looked at his father with watery eyes. He could not formulate words. His mouth stumbled over them. His tongue was petrified with fear. And no sounds could slither out of his lungs. Fire was ashamed, pained and terribly sorry. He let out a pitiful hiccup. He remembered the harsh words of Candel’s father, ‘Ponies must not be sorry for anything. When a pony does a mistake, it is his duty to fix it’. These sentences bounced into the colt’s head. His legs failed him. He put a knee on the wood floor, and nearly faint. Truth was hard to take and Fire could only contemplate his powerlessness. He would die if he did anything. He would die if he did nothing.
“Dad, I…”
“Honey…” her mother added, seeking her husband’s attention.
“Shut up,” The bulky stallion replied. “Ah just need to think straight.”
The Earth Pony next to him grumbled.
“We have to attack, we can’t stay trapped up here,” he spat. “Plough, do you hear me?”
“Plough?” Fire broke in. “But Father, that’s not your n…”
A series of loud bangs echoed once again below. The walls shook. Fire’s mother hugged her two sisters, trying not having them crying. A waste of time. A voice shouting a raucous ‘clear’ rose from the first floor. The two young fillies started sobbing.
“There is somepony upstairs!” a voice toned.
Plough looked at his son, then at his partner. He still had the bag of explosives between his hooves. He grabbed one as horseshoes rumbled in the wooden staircase. He threw it in and jumped aside, pushing Fire and his wife over to protect them from the blast wave. The blue explosion shredded a wall of the house into pieces. Screams of pain rose from the rubbles that had replaced the stairs. The atmosphere went filled with dust and everypony coughed.
In the ambient chaos, Fire, his family and Little One had a short rest to build on. They needed an escape. Fire’s father bucked a window, shattering it to bits. Then he ransacked the kitchen and came back with a pair of knives and a table. Hurried, he ripped the latter from its legs. The neighbouring house was close enough to create a bridge with the remaining slab. He threw it into the gap, breaking into one of the frame built into the wall of the other cottage. He turned back and looked at his children. He was going to speak.
From the dust floating mid-air emerged a duo of pegasi, armed and ready to attack. Both sniggered.
“We order you to surrender,” they ordered. “Put your hooves on the ground and…”
One of the pegasi spotted Plough’s stooge. The stallion was standing his ground, blowing hot air with his nose. The soldier also saw the bag of arcs at the pony’s hooves. Negotiations ended instantly. The atmosphere went downward explosive. The pegasus aimed and shot in a fraction of second, leaving nopony had the time to react. Fire closed his eyes and waited for an explosion. It never came. A disgusting sound burst instead. A gurgling.
The unnamed stallion gargled and kicked the bag of arcs aside in a jolt. Blood jetted from his neck, splattering the old and dusty parquet floor with large stains of dark red. The stallion trembled as he put his heels on a cable that thrust itself out of his throat. A thin barbed harpoon had gone through his neck, stabbing him from side to side. The jagged edge was linked to the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon with the cable. The stallion was desperate to set himself free. He crackled inaudible words and started fidgeting with pain and fear.
Everypony took a hoofstep back. Fire held his breath and winced. He raised a hoof to his neck, trying to chase the choking feeling away. Still flying, the Pegasus switched on a mechanism incorporated to the butt of his weapon. The cable began rewinding with a low whistle. The atrociously wounded pony jerked on his sides. The pain was too intense and he could not scream it out. Bubbles of red swelled and popped around his mouth.
Once again the stallion tried to get rid of the embrace of the harpoon struck in his throat. It was a horrible waste of breath. Like in slow-motion, Fire watched the pony getting pulled by the Pegasus, leaving behind him a large puddle of blood as if he was a useless mop.
Fire did not even know the stallion’s name. And he was already dead. Well, nearly dead. His starting body was reminding him of a dying bunny. Fire had seen one in Murmanesk’s market a long time ago. The tiny white animal had been passed over by a cart. Fire had watched meticulously the last moments of the animal with a morbid avidity. And right now, the dying pony was moving exactly like that bunny, pitifully… miserably, in fits and starts. A creepy comparison showed up in Fire’s mind. The pegasi soldiers had gone fishing and the stallion was the first catch of the day.
Fire swallowed his saliva when the pony gave up the ghost. He had seen him passing from a perfectly healthy stallion to the most miserable cadaver in less than five seconds. The colours of Fire’s face washed out, chased by an irrepressible crave to throw up.
A click rammed the ambient silence. The harpoon retracted its fangs and sliced back the dead stallion’s neck. Crawling on the ground, the edge took off and jumped back to its place, inside the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon. With an unsettling smile, the flying stallion stared at the collier family, stunned before him. Scanning them, he settled his eyes on Fire and Little One. He gave a look of utter disgust to the latter.
“We meet again you little pieces of shit,” he giggled and then transfixed the younger of the two colts. “I’ll take care of you first, aberration.”
The pegasus had a cut on his forehead. The shingle Fire had shot at him had left its mark. Small droplets of blood dripped over the pegasus’s face. The red outlined its traits, deformed with anger, pleasure and sadism. He was going to make him pay too. Behind the pegasus, the second soldier pull out of his military saddlebag a series of hoofcuffs. There were even pairs made for children.
“Now surrender calmly and nothing will go wrong,” The first military pony commanded with a slightly amused tone.
Fire’s father moved so fast nopony had time to bat an eye. The two knives he had brought from the kitchen had been lying on the ground. In a swift start he bucked them, aiming at the soldier carrying the harpoon. One missed but the other pierced through his fur and side. The soldier yelped and fell on the ground, shrieking from the pain. He dropped his weapon. The second soldier ducked to the ground, trying to reach it. A heavy hoof struck his throat hard. It flung him away from the harpoon. The soldier coughed, lying on the ground. He tried to catch his breath.
A hoof full of pegasi emerged from the dust still flying where the stairs had stood. Some had cuts and bruises. They had survived the arc explosion.
“Fire, you gotta flee right now,” his father shouted.
Fire nodded hesitantly. With Little One he jumped onto the improvised bridge. Ready to cross it, he gave a glance at his sisters. They could not move a centimetre. Stoic, their eyes were transfixed on the stallion’s dead body. Blood were splattered everywhere. Fire hesitated again. A wild instinct wanted him to come back in, to fight. Little One bit on his crackled goggles, pulling him away of the window. He made him cross the wooden bridge. Still looking at his father, Fire caught the stabbed pegasus fleeing away.
“Pay attention!” Little One shouted.
He pulled Fire over a second before a spearhead struck the makeshift wooden bridge. They jumped through the frame of the other cottage and a blue burst smashed the plaque into chips. Fire heard the cries of her sister resonated in his ears, followed by the roar of his father.
“So you didn’t catch the two colts?” The lieutenant asked with a dry tone.
The wounded pegasus shook his head. He was angry too. He rubbed his forehead and winced. His side was stabbing him. Two times he had been ridiculed by Earthbounds.
“You’re all fucking useless!” the lieutenant raged.
“We would have but… But the North quarters are a maze. It’s impossible to really manoeuvre through. Streets are too narrow, ponies are too violent,” he explained, ducking his head in his shoulders. “There are always causalities when we try something there. And you do know Sir that, at the moment, Earthbounds are on the loose.”
The lieutenant wanted to punch him in the face.
“What about the Duma?” he asked, hiding his inner feelings.
“I don’t really know. But some random news says that there’s a whole bunch of survivors. The families’re being evacuated toward the nearest shard until the uprising is over. The Upper City is being protected. And a curfew has been enforced. Earthbounds are shot on sight.”
The lieutenant sighed. It would be bad on his monthly report.
“I…”
“Lieutenant, you might want to see this,” a forensic called for from a corner of the cave.
The concerned pony swivelled and abandoned the soldier to his wounds.
“What do you want from me?” the lieutenant asked.
“Look at what I’ve found.” The medical examiner showed something stuck at the tip of a thin plier.
“It’s a white feather,” The lieutenant deadpanned. “What’s so interesting about it?”
“Do you see any white pegasus around?” the investigator wondered.
After a quick look at everypony around, the lieutenant shook his head.
“Now do you see a white pegasus among the dead?”
A second no answered back. The forensic was right. It was odd.
“Somepony else ran out of this cave.”
The lieutenant whispered some curses.
“Okay, keep doing the good job; I need to go to the surface. Pegasi above our heads need me more than you.”
Nopony replied.
“I need to help them,” Fire shrieked trying to run toward the broken windows. Little One held him back as much as he could.
“No you won’t, you’re just going to get killed.” Little One slapped him in the face. “You can’t do anything.”
“I…”
Fire held back a gag and looked deep in the eyes of this colt, two years younger than him. Forced to swallow his pride, Fire let tears flow on his cheeks. He sniffed. All had happened so fast.
They stood on the first floor of the neighbouring cottage. The house was empty of life but was a matter of second before pegasi would try to break through the door or the windows. Fire thought about his father, mother and sisters. They were so close, behind two walls of bricks, but somehow out of reach. Fire pictured the dead features of the stallion on each of his family’s faces. He shivered. His situation was hellish; for him, Tartarus had literally materialised in his life. Like a greedy maw, it had shattered and brought to ruin every hope and bonds he had lived with since he was born, years ago. He whined.
Little One patted Fire’s shoulder.
“We need to go.” He trembled.
“Crack that crap open, they must be inside,” a voice broke in through the interstices of the door.
A metallic battering ram banged on the door so loudly it brought Fire back to reality. The nearest windows shattered. A hoof slithered in the hole, trying to unlock the opening. Looking around, the two colts spotted a small window. Nopony was trying to go through. Was it an exit?
They threw a chair on the dusty glass. Breaking it, they jumped through and landed in the street. It was a narrow and dark alleyway between two cottages. Nopony was passing by at the moment. Yet it was a matter of seconds before soldiers rushed in to catch them. Two pegasus showed their heads in the passage. They shouted threats at the two colts. Both ran off in the opposite direction.
A hoof full of pegasi gave chase to the two young ponies. As expected, the colliers’ habitations were a labyrinth of small streets and paths. Back roads went through the ground only to surface a dozen of meters away. Keeping two moving shapes in sight was impossible. Byways were dark and impossible to fly through. It had been built over decade on the sole purpose to be a stronghold for the miners.
In less than a few minutes, the pegasi were already scattered, searching for any evidence of the two colts’ passage. Sometimes they did spot them, only to lose their tracks seconds after. It needed no time before the pissed off soldiers started barraging the ground. Anger was aimed toward any moving shadow. Whether it was a pony, a rat or their imagination… It did not matter.
“They’re here!” a pegasus called out, pointing with his spear two shapes weaving between two houses.
The chase started again.
Down below, Little One and Fire panted heavily, suffocating. The sweat blurred their eyes, paining them with a salty bite. Their manes were swamped with mud. The atrocious scar slicing Little One’s forehead was hidden under this layer of dirt. Once again they succeed in shaking off the soldiers. They turned left. A dead-end.
“Shit,” Fire let out.
“Found you,” a delighted voice cackled behind.
Turning around slowly, the two colts stared into the eyes of a pegasus mare. She was sweating a river while juggling with her spear. Joy was readable on her face and both Fire and Little One were sure she was going to enjoy the punishment.
“You sick kids made me fly too much for today,” she berated. “Time to go to sleep.”
Fire and Little One’s eyes widened with fear. The mare replied with a quick laughter and lifted her weapon, aiming at them.
“I don’t think so,” a deep voice denied behind the pegasus.
She was not given the time to face the unexpected newcomer. A massive claw cut down her back and buried her head deep in the mud swamping the street. Then, the huge shadow caved its talons into the mare’s back, throat and skull, making sure she would be quiet forever.
“Argen!” Little One beamed at the sight of the massive crow and jumped between his slender legs.
The colt hugged thankfully this figure, a foster father in his eyes. He patted the bird’s feathers, all moistened, humid and muddy. With a gentle pressure of his wing, Argen pushed Little One away. The orange clot felt sticky. He looked down his fur. It was soaked with red and shredded feathers.
“You… you’re hurt?” Little One blabbered.
Argen gave a short-lived cackle, trying to laugh. A sudden pain in his chest broke his mood.
“I’ve seen worse,” he coughed as if a knife was ramming his throat.
Fire stood between Little One and Argen, and let his stress flow out. He wept, his legs trembling, failing him. He fell on the ground.
“You must help me,” he cried. “My family’s just there, they need help! They will kill them!”
Argen sighed. And he whacked Fire with his claw, ripping off clumps of his mane, knocking him out.
Little One’s eyes widened in fear and shivered. He felt his mane itched like hell.
“Don’t hit me… master.”
Argen grinned ironically.
“I won’t. I just needed him to be quiet. I must take you out of here.”
All the events Little One had ran through rushed out of his mind in seconds. A heavy burden seemed to lift away from his shoulders. He sighed and fell.
“Are you okay?” Argen asked, hiding his worry deep behind his stoic face.
“I… I’m fine.” Little One paused and took a long breath. “This city is just a crazy hole.”
“This world is a nave of lunatics.”
Argen ransacked his ventral bag and took out a piece of fabric.
“Hide that wound, which I can’t endure to look,” he quoted.
His assistant chortled, and a tear rolled on his cheek.
“You’ll never tell me from where I come?” he brought forth.
Argen shook his head negatively and let out a small breath.
“It’s for your own security.”
Little One lay down the dirt, giving up his guard. The sounds filling the city reached his ears. He had been so focused on fleeing away he had cut himself from the ambient zoom. Distant screams burst randomly in Murmanesk, loud explosions crackled hundreds of meters from his position. He caught the whistling of a pegasus’s wings flying above him. A shadow in the sky passed by, unaware of Little One and Argen’s presences. Having narrow streets was a benediction, sometimes.
“We’ll go to the harbour. It’s the safest place at the moment,” Argen stated sternly. “I can’t work on the investigation with such mess. And…”
Little One shook his head, clearing his mind. Revelation struck him hard, like an alarm clock early morning.
“The mine,” the colt shouted.
He tried to get up. The adrenaline had worn off and the bruises covering his body pained him more than he had expected.
“The mine. There was dead everywhere. Sucked out like…”
Little One’s pupils went huge. Again he attempted to rise on his hooves but his backbone gave a series of small cracks.
“Like the pegasus in the tower!” he finished.
Argen stepped back, puzzled.
“That doesn’t make any sense. How…”
“That Candel, Fire is so fond of.” Little One gave a look at his friend, still unconscious. “I think there might be a link.”
Argen shrugged ironically. He doubted of it. Yet, a lot of things were off in this city. The ponies were crazy, the pegasi were… no pegasi were all the same everywhere in the Federation. This shard was not working sanely. Something had been brewing here for too long and was ready to explode.
“We go to the harbour right now,” Argen ordered, grabbing Fire’s inanimate body and placing him in his ventral pack. Little One jumped in and hid as much as he could.
Argen started walking. Limping was a better description and the pegasi flying over his head did not paid attention. Who was crazy enough to tackle a monster like that? Before disappearing in the next corner, Argen gave a last glance at the mare he had killed. Hidden by the shadows of the street she was silent, swimming in her own blood. Flies were already on her, savouring the feast.
The massive bird walked to an empty boulevard. Ponies had barricaded themselves in their cottages. Everypony outside could feel eyes watching upon them from behind every curtain. Argen shook his head and focused. In the middle of the road a group of pegasi were escorting four earth ponies. He limped in their direction, leaving behind some drops of blood. A soldier found the courage to stand before the bird and face him. His trembling limbs were easily spottable. The pegasus was utterly scared.
“You can’t pass, Sir,” He alerted with a shaky voice. “Those ponies are under arrest. They are accused of being terrorists. Those ones destroyed the Duma.”
The soldier paused and scanned Argen from head to tail. A piece of paper, dangling out of the ventral pack, caught his attention. A red symbol had been stamped on it. The pony’s mind went click.
“You were in the Duma, weren’t you?” he asked. “Could you recognize one of them?”
Argen took a closer look to the group of ponies. Two fillies were crying under their hooves-cuffed mother. A large stallion had been put aside. He was bloodied, bruised and panting. A large cut on his flank showed he had been swiftly tortured.
A pegasus smashed a baton over his legs. The earth pony yelped, bent and fell on his side. The fillies’ cries intensified. Argen stepped forward and leaned over the crooked form. The arches of the stallion’s eyebrows were broken. His eyelids had swollen and he had some jagged teeth.
The stallion looked up at the shadow covering him. His vision blurred, he blinked a few times. When he finally gazed into Argen’s eyes adrenaline kicked in his brain. His blue eyes widened. Instantly, he tried to repel his surprise. But it was too late.
“Speak,” Argen ordered.
The stallion refused to talk.
“Again. Speak,” Argen continued.
“Go fack yerself with an a’c-spear,” he murmured.
Argen growled. He titled his head toward the soldiers.
“Eeyup,” Argen stated neutrally. “I think it’s him.”
The pegasi’s features brightened with creepy smiles of content. Their stares were like daggers thrown at the Earthbound family. It was a matter of time before the stallion would be given another series of shots, bucks, smashes and baton strikes. Argen felt somepony jeerking in his ventral bag. Turning over, he gave a punch on it, mimicking a cough. The agitator inside went silent.
“What are you going to do with them?” Argen asked the military supervisor.
“They’re going to be executed on the harbour, hung or shot and left to rot as the law requires it,” he supported. “Well, I’d be glad to do it myself.”
The soldier kicked the stallion in the chest making his breath more erratic than ever.
“It’s a shame it’s an executioner’s duty.”
Argen shook his head sheepishly, pinching his beak. Again he felt something rummaging in his bag. Taking leave, Argen walked away swiftly and turned into another street, empty of life. Little One’s head ejected from one of the bag’s pocket. He was reddish with anger. He pierced his mentor with a killing stare, burning internally.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” he spat.
“I condemned a pony to death because he killed many others?” Argen shrugged then sighed. “Well, he will be beaten and tortured before… That’s sadder.”
“No,” Little One burst out. “You’ve just killed Fire’s father! And now everypony will see him being killed on the harbour.”
“You what?” a third voice rose, a bit muffled.
Suddenly Fire jumped out of the bag, his eyes red with tears, lost and flickering like candles. Awakening, he shot hurried and frightened looks across the street, searching for a landmark. Then, he ran away.
“Stop,” Argen shouted without conviction.
Fire disappeared in the next crossroads.
“Horseapples!” Argen enraged, and kicked the air in front of him.
The lieutenant flew past a flood of ponies. The mass buzzing in the street near the harbour was overwhelming like a torrent. Ponies were swimming against the tide. Ponies pushed each other fiercely. From his position, the pegasus waited for the moment a pony would fall, only to be smashed under careless stomping hooves.
The harbour was not distant. From above and afar, the lieutenant could watch upon the devastation rampaging the city. Gargantuan clouds of black smokes rose slowly from the colliers’ quarters while in the background the eviscerated shape of the Duma was giving fumes and flames. The atmosphere was sombre, eerie. Below, ponies whispered that the night was coming. A chill ran over their spines and some stopped, trying to distinguish a beaming sphere low in the horizon. The wan sun stuck in the west was darkened by the ashes in the air.
The harbour was overcrowded by rows and lines of ponies; earth ponies being repelled, pegasi being selected. A terrible mess during a breaking records situation. Large shadows were cast upon the ponies waiting for a way out, caming came from three flying barges. Each needed to be manoeuvred by five pegasi, capable of moving slightly less than a hundred ponies. Attentive watchers could see that pegasi were the first to go in. The reason why they were the first was blatant. Why they needed to be transported was less evident; they could fly to the next shard. Of course they could, the only reason they did not was that shards constantly moved. Everypony needed navigators to travel, even the pegasi. And at the moment, they were at least two thousands of them hoping to embark.
The lieutenant shook his head. It would not end well. He landed near of the garrison. Another one, older, went out and ran across the square. The old buck hugged the lieutenant.
“Father, stop,” the lieutenant hissed with a low tone. “You’re shaming me.”
The older pegasus shed a tear.
“I was worried, with all that silly stuff happening around.” He swept his hooves in front of everypony, showing the chaos raging before him.
“What’s going on? How about the evacuation alert?”
“It’s all going smoothly,” the older clarified. “The very important ponies are evacuated first. Others can wait. They are transferred on other shards until the troubles and delinquencies are crackdown, mended and fixed.”
He emphasised on the four last words with a growing angry tone.
“I…” the Lieutenant started but his voice died in his mouth.
His glare scanned a crowd moving like one mass of mindless insects. His pupils contracted to pinprick. Something was afoot. Was it that old buck, his flank bleeding? No. Was it that mare, conducting her child toward a less agitated area? No. He could not figure it out. Unless…
He spotted her. A pegasus, a white filly trotting by, lost in the ambient mess. White feathers, scruffy fire-coloured mane, pegasus’s wings hung to her back, and a pair of wing-cuff screwed on them.
“Meh,” he smirked, scowling at her. “A fallen.”
And she was white-feathered. The lieutenant focused. Was it blood smearing her immaculate face?
The soldier raised his hooves, notifying his father to wait. Like a shadow, he crept toward the filly, willing to follow her. She was limping, roaming among the ponies hurrying around her. She did not seem to have a clear destination.
The wandering filly was splattered with mud, and blood. The lieutenant rubbed his eyes. She was not wounded at all. Well, she had bruised and trembled, but she had nothing that would soak her with this much blood. She appeared minuscule among the crowd. Yet she was inspiring interrogations, fear, and of course, disgust. Ponies backed away from her with a wince. The pegasi, the pure ones, even insulted her. However, the filly was not paying attention.
She crossed the way of a pair of guards. Spotting her, they smiled and move in her direction. The lieutenant refused to interfere at the moment. The civilians stepped back, leaving a fairly large space to the three ponies. Forming a circle around them, the ponies gulped, knowing what was going to happen. Mane itched and ears twisted. The soldiers were often cruel and messy. Foals were among the spectators and many parents hoped it would not end in a gore bullying. They had to preserve their children’s innocence.
The armoured ponies stood in front of the white filly. Slowly, she raised her head, making the guards shudder.
Everypony around whimpered and stepped back again. The lieutenant dug his path through the ponies, forgetting to use his wings. Some ponies cursed but many were glad to put a pony between them and the scene. The lieutenant understood why. The filly…
“It aches,” she whispered.
Her mouth dangled wide opened and through the gap between her white teeth slithered a dark red drool. Her sweaty mane flowed over her forehead and neck like a liquid-fire. Dust covered her hooves and her tail was torn in many locations. The scariest was not all of this. It was her eyes. Two white burst open globe deprived of pupils and irises stared aimlessly toward the guards. The tiniest remain of smile had left their lips, now cast with fear.
Her cutie mark was beaming a pale blue light. Burning like a small flame. It was frightening and ponies shivered on their hooves, giving a step back. The lieutenant had never seen a cutie mark moving on itself. And the weak fire on the candle’s wick was flickering randomly, hypnotic.
The filly’s muttering were not loud, yet everypony around could hear her. She hesitated on the same syllable for a minute. Repeating‘e’ again and again like clockwork until it died in her raspy throat.
“It hurts so much,” she whimpered direly.
The lieutenant’s pupils contracted.
“What’s hurting you?” he asked with a quite spooked voice.
“The world,” she foreshadowed. “This world is dying and…”
She stopped, looked around, and growled.
“Everypony will die soon. They have to.”
This last sentence echoed more than it should have. Ponies trembled. A soldier stepped forward, glanced upon the moving cutie mark, then the wing-cuffs.
“Silence, you little witch!”
He raised his spear and knocked its butt onto her face. She shrieked and leaned on her side, curling up. She began sobbing. Three more blows struck her hard. Blood splattered the asphalt. Ponies, Pegasi or Earth Ponies, turned away, hiding the scene from their foals. Some stayed, fascinated by the gore. The filly’s sides had turned bluish. She coughed blood, spitting it between two jolts. The soldier laughed openly, calling his friends to join the fair.
A freezing wind blew through the crowd, like a low whisper. The soldier grunted and left the filly alone, searching for the eerie complaint’s origin. He felt something birthing in his thorax. Anxiety. He looked around, again, and saw the terrified glares his comrades gave him. He frowned. Why was he hearing a sizzling in his ears? The terror spread across the witnesses. He lifted his hooves before his eyes. Now, the soldier was scared.
His fur was melting, falling into clumps on the ground. His skin withered, wrenched, and wrinkled like a sponge under the sun. But there was no pain, only a crude horror that grabbed his heart. He screamed. Tried to. No air entered nor exited his lungs. He felt rotting, burning and searing from the inside. He jumped on his hind legs, sought help in everypony’s faces. Only fear could be read on them.
He tried to breath. Impossible. His eyes cracked and popped. Before he lost his vision, he glared at the small white pegasus facing him. Her stiff was beaming. His eyes met hers. Those ghostly white eyes shot open and pierced him as an arrow goes through flesh. They could be as white as the snow, but they also seemed like two open-pits. Two wide opened maw sucking the will out of those who dared looking inside. The soldier heard his bones crack, his spine shatter and his brain break into pieces. Again he tried to cry out. Silence gaged him. He shrunk on itself like a dried and smashed fruit and fell on the ground.
A hard thump echoed. The dead do not talk.
Silence settled across the harbour. Many ponies had seen the soldier die and the ambient buzz that had died around him had attracted attention. Ponies had gathered around the grim walloping before it tipped up. And now, ponies backed from the pegasus filly. She was standing in front of the cadaver, mute and stoic. Her cutie mark never stopped glowing.
“Candel?” an undecided voice brought forth.
Many eyes set upon a scruffy colt. He broke the circle and ran past the soldiers as if they were not there. He cast a glance over the cadaver and shivered. He swallowed his saliva and jumped over it. He could feel eyes looking at him like having red-hot embers pressed onto his fur. But her thought was all focused on Candel. Running in the harbour he had seen the strange gathering and heard gasps. Curiosity did the rest. When he had found out Candel was inside a circle, near a cadaver, his heart had nearly stopped.
He hugged her tight. And he wept in the hollow under her wings. She did not talk or even remarked his presence. She stood still. He looked at her in her eyes, saw their states and his eyes ran across her features. The blood, the bruises, the pain… All could be read on her. She had suffered. Fire turned his head and inspected quickly the soldier.
“What happened?” He held back a gag. “Candel?”
“Get away from her,” A pegasus took time to spell. “You have one second.”
Fire blinked and turned over. He dunked his head into his shoulders. A muscled pegasus making the colt looking two apples-high blew air on him. A rattling whistled in the air as he drew a curved sword out of its sheath fastened under the stallion’s wing.
“In virtue of the power the Direction gave me, I hereby decree this filly to die for murder,” he grumbled, chewing off the pommel of the sword.
“No, no, no,” Fire repeated.
The pegasus punched him aside and neared toward Candel.
She was smiling. It was not her gentle and innocent smile, Fire could tell it. It was something else. A creepy, evil and monstrous grin a filly should not make. Candel chuckled. The scene was so out of context whispers filled the airs. Panic ran beneath the skins. Nervousness numbed minds. Everything was going to topple over and nopony dared to interpose. Her giggles changed into a deep laugh. Even the soldiers stopped. She sat and titled her head on her left shoulder. She cracked her spine and a pop rung. Her smile widened from ear to ear.
“And what are you gonna do?” she cackled. “Kill me?”
It was enough. The soldier trembled with rage and charged, ready to put the filly out of her misery. Fire closed his eyes and waited for the slash to be heard. It never came. Lifting an eyelid he looked at Candel. Fire held his breath.
Candel hopped around the stallion, stuck mid-air. Fire blinked a second time and his eyes widened in a start. A blue aura was encasing him. In an instant the pegasus dried like a rotting flower. A second body slammed onto the ground. Ribs cracked open under its still warm flesh. The blue aura never faded away.
“Fire?” A voice cried behind him.
The so-called colt looked back. Little One was right behind him. He was now carrying a saddlebag. His eyes were petrified onto Candel’s silhouette. He whined as fear enshrouded his heart. Fire also saw Argen standing feet away from his position. He was watching over the crowd and his shadow made ponies run away. An ‘eep brought Fire back to Candel. The blue aura shaped into hundreds of tentacles and sprawled over the harbour. It crawled on the fleeing ponies around, mares, stallions and youngsters alike. And like dying roses, they wilted.
Fire and Little One hugged, shaking forcefully. They saw the aura creeping in their direction. They cried out for help and froze. It stopped, as if it was thinking, and bypassed them. Looking at the blue forms was to die of fear. But it held them back from doing anything stupid. Little One looked at his mentor. He had run or flown away as he was not amongst the fallen.
The wave of death bounced across the tarmac over a hundred of feet. The thousands of ponies that had stomped it were running without any restrain. Crying, shouting, screaming like animals conducted to the slaughterhouse.
A hundred of corpses were scattered on the runaway of the harbour. All showed the same withered aspect, gaving nausea. Pegasi had flown up in the sky and now ponies were pressing to enter one of the three barges. Everypony had fled from Candel.
The small pegasus stood high among the many dead, facing Fire. She winced and the veil whitening her eyes vanished, giving her back her beautiful hazel irises. She started crying and ran to Fire. Little One shuddered and tried not to come closer to the filly. He stumbled on his legs and crawled away from her, weeping in fear. He had wet himself. The stench grew.
Candel did not pay attention. She curled on Fire’s arm, crying loudly, seeking for a warmth hug in the hollow of his shoulder. Ponies were still fidgeting around as panic had spread like wildfire.
A horn roared on one of the barge. At the same time, explosions burst in the Lower City. Fire cast a glance around. The vision was hellish. Smokes, death, terror. He felt sick. He wanted to run away… Fly away. He chuckled ironically. He was stuck on the ground. The only way to get away was by the air. Murmanesk was a damn shard. Nopony could get out unless he had wings.
“In the mine, I felt so alone,” Candel finally explained. “Father died. Ponies tried to…”
She sobbed and closed her eyes. She tightened her grasp onto Fire’s hoof.
“And when I thought everything was lost. I…” She paused. “I just wanted to die.”
An explosion rammed afar. The ground quaked.
“In the dark I prayed for somepony to come.” Her lips quivered. “You never came there.”
“I…”
“I heard a voice in my head.”
From creepy, the situation went downward insane. A voice? Fire was doubting now. He gave a worried look at Candel, trying to hide his scepticism. Yet, the spectacle given to see around was a show that shatter all rational explanation. Candel had done something she was not supposed to. Fire could give her the benefice of doubt.
“It told me things I never wanted to,” she confided. “It was frightening. I felt naked… worse than that. And… And the gems glowed. I’ve seen what they held secret. And I ran away. I’ve seen too much.”
Fire’s heart stopped during a moment. A claw tightened his soul and tied a knot in his stomach.
“What did you hear?” Fire brought in, ashamed.
Fear changed into terror as Candel’s voice changed from her usual kind tone to a more nightmarish one.
“This world is going to end. And nopony will see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she announced.
Candel kissed Fire on the neck. He winced then blushed, pinching his lips trying not to look surprised. And he gave a shy smile, this feeling was all new, strange. Candel resumed talking.
“Yet, there is a way to stop everything and go backward.”
She laughed and the voice Fire knew so much came back, replacing the dark tone she had shown.
“I must go,” she explained. “It calls me. It beckons and waves at me.”
She pressed her hooves on her temples, squeezing them until drops of blood fell on her cheeks.
“I want them to go. It calls. It calls…”
“What is calling you?” Fire cried.
“The end.”
Shaken, Fire let her stand up. Her head was wobbling back and forth like a crazymare. She passed him. Fire felt her orange, red and yellow mane ran across his face, the touch sensation was raspy, long was now gone the time of smooth manes. He wanted to talk, but he was stunned.
Candel stopped next to Little One. She eyed him with an inquisitive stare giving to the colt the feeling he was just a prey between two predatory talons. She huffed and drifted away. Little One dripped with sweat and let all his contracted muscles go limp. On her own, Candel trotted toward the nearest barge. Ponies spotted her and ran or fly away. The atmosphere crystallized in her tow. After what she had done, forbidden, forsaken and forgotten magic or anything that could be called so, nopony dared stand against her. Pegasi guards had taken their distance.
From his position Fire could not see how the barge looked like inside. It was a massive carriage, more like a big crate of wood and metal. Only writing had been punched on a white plaque, screwed on its rear. ‘DH-47’ it read. Fire repeated the inscriptions dozens of times before he got up.
The barges rumbled and started hovering. It slowly took off in an overwhelming cacophony. Fire screamed Candel’s name. The sound went covered by the loud buzz of the flying building. And it flew away slowly until it disappeared in the horizons.
“We’ve got to follow her!” Fire shouted, forcing Little One onto his hooves.
The blue coated colt saw in a corner a duo of pegasi debating, harnessed to an empty cart. An idea popped in his mind. With a taint of anger, Fire took the sword the dead soldier had dropped a minute ago.
Little One left Fire to his own business. Something had caught his attention. At his hooves was a small carnet. It was torn at some points and old. Half of the pages had been filled with small scriptures. Everything was signed by a name.
“Candelabra,” he slowly spoke up.
Little One looked where one of the three barges had docked.
“When did she…”
Reality called him back as he heard a shout. Fire was threatening the two pegasi with the sword.
“You’re going to fly to that chariot’s destination!” he boomed.
The two stallions were scared. And the leather straps joining them to the carriage held them back from running away or flying... Fire was standing inside the vehicle, biting the sword pointed at the two stallions’ flanks.
“We don’t know where the barge went. You should ask the mapmakers!” they begged.
“Who?”
Fire nearly stabbed them. They hissed in stupor.
“They forecast the shard’s roaming and keep tracks of flying movement!” One of the two confessed.
“Where are they?”
“In the capital!”
“Take me there!” Fire ordered.
“I…”
Fire poked the stubborn pegasus with the tip of his weapon.
“Now!”
The pegasi nodded and flapped their wings. A shriek stopped it all. Fire turned over his shoulder, seeking for the scream’s origin. The no-pony’s land-like harbour was a mess of agitated ponies, cadavers, smokes and madness. It was like looking into a mirror and watching an even more twisted and crooked version of this abominable city.
Glancing over his shoulder he saw two young fillies, a mare and a broken stallion. His mouth dropped. He winced, shivered, cried, and finally cursed…
His father raised his head. His mouth was dangling open, the jaw broken. One of his hooves was screwed on the side and his stiffs that had sported cutie marks were covered with mud and blood. Her mother was afraid. No, not afraid, terrified. When she caught Fire on the cart carrying a sword, huge tears dripped off her face. She screamed his name.
The soldiers escorting the family glared daggers at the two colts and their two pegasi hostages. Among them were the same stallions they had fled from in the Lower City. Some had sworn to catch them only to quench their anger. Others had only wished for some fun. The destruction scattered on the harbour had given then an excuse. Fire covered his ears; he refused to listen to the coming statement. Yet, he heard it.
“Surrender or your parents will be killed.”
“No, no, no, no, no…” he whispered. “No, no, no!”
His hooves trembled as he dropped the weapon in the carriage floor under him. He looked at the cloudy sky, hoping to see the barges coming back. No black spot was visible. He looked at Little One; he refused to meet his eyes.
“Somepony help me,” he cried softly, glancing at his parents. “Tell me what to do?”
Soldiers took off all around, ready to capture the two colts. Fire hoped Argen would appear from nowhere, telling him to go away from Murmanesk. Forcing him to do so, using the service he owed him. But the emissary was nowhere to be found. ‘You come to life on Murmanesk, you live on Mumanesk and you die on Murmanesk as it is an open-sky jail’ he had heard from somewhere. Was it coming from Candel’s father?
“Please, tell me something?” he begged to anypony willing to hear him.
Alone. Being alone took its entire signification at that moment. The image of many faces, Candel’s, his father’s, mother’s, sisters’s, everypony’s flew past before his closed eyes. His heart beat faster and a pull dragged down it in his chest, like an anchor screwing him to the ground of the city, of the Pit, of that open maw that had swallowed so many ponies. The ties he was going to shatter if he left appeared clearer into Fire’s mind. He wept again.
Little One shivered at the sight of the coming pegasi.
“I don’t want to die,” he blabbered.
Tears broke on Fire’s face. He took a long breath and sighed. His eyes, red with passion, anger and shame, drifted in his parents’ direction.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered with shame, “I’m so sorry. But… I have to do something.”
Fire turned his gaze away, his eyes wet with tears.
“Fly away!” he ordered, “Fast, fast, fast. Never come back here. Please, go away.”
The two pegasi first look at themselves and they took off, fearing the colt would attack them with the weapon at his hooves. Fire curled up and shivered at the sounds of her mother calling him from beneath. He covered his ears once again when the call changed into a cry, then into a scream.
Fire bit his lower lips. He had not said goodbye, he had not looked into his father’s blue eyes, and he had not reassured his sisters. He had left, ran away, flew away like a coward. He bit his lips with even more strength until blood ran into his mouth. He hiccupped.
And he screamed as he never did before. A scream so loud the world would shake.
Argen watched the events stack on over the other until the silence was reinforced on the tarmac. A large number of ponies had seen everything. Stares were kept low, avoiding crossing the path of any pegasus soldier. Like sheep, the civilians formed rows. Like mindless beings, they waited for their turn. A pegasus stopped at his side. He was carrying another one, older, dead. He had been killed by the blue aura like many others.
“Why haven’t you done something Emissary?” The lieutenant asked with a pinch of anger melted with disappointment.
“There was not much than I can do.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Sir,” he retorted as a tear fell off his cheek. “You had a good time here, killing, watching but not acting, why?”
Argen smiled.
“You heard the filly, this world is in decay. It will end soon. And to be honest, I want to know more about that young lady.”
He ransacked his bag and pull out the clean skull of a mare, he handled it to the pegasus. The lieutenant frowned upon the macabre item.
“And I’m old,” Argen continued. “I hoped I’d have a good, slow-paced retirement. But now that I’ve seen magic come back to life, I’m thrilled. I thought the pegasus race had eradicated it when you took over.
He gave a sadistic smile to the Lieutenant.
“There are still mysteries to discover in this world,” he continued. “And I’m gonna discover them before this world crumble to its own demise.”
“It’s a game for you, ain’t it?”
“Exactly,” Argen snickered.
“You’re all monsters.”
Argen gave a surprised chortle. He sighed and craned his head toward the stallion.
“Tell me. Who exterminated the unicorns?”
The lieutenant shot a murderous glare at the emissary. In the distance the two others barges thundered as they were lifted up to the sky. An undertaker cross the frontier of the tarmac and walked quasi-ritually toward the slaughter in the middle of the runaway.
“Now tell me,” Argen articulated, “Do you remember why you killed them all?”
Argen chuckled at the silent Pegasus when no reply came.
“We are all monsters bound by blood. So let’s all appreciate the perfume of the end flying in the air until the beat of our hearts dies in our ears.”
The lieutenant shook his head in bereavement.
The trip will last long, maybe a week. We will make stops on some shards before going to the Capital. Maybe they know where the barge is gone. Every inch of my body quivers. I felt I was going to die on that shard. Everything is gone too fast.
Fire doesn’t talk too much. He just cried for hours and now he’s silent, deaf at my calls. We still have the sword to threaten the pegasi to lead us to the Capital. They look at us, sometimes. I think they fear us. Everypony has seen what that girl… Candelabra has done to other ponies.
Magic. Why am I so thrilled and jealous? She is a pegasus, I am a unicorn. And she is the one that has magic. It’s unfair.
Now my forehead aches. I remember how she eyed me. It was scary. I felt like she was going to devour me.
And I left Argen. Will he search for me? Punish me?
I don’t want to think about it.
Lit’
“I’ve been through so much troubles
For the beauty in your eyes
I buried my reason under rubbles
And screamed up to the skies
I’ve seen you suffer for so long
From your daily condition
When all seemed so wrong
These words went as redemption
‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back
Once again into the light
I’ll chase away that freight
For you only to smile’
I cried so much for what I’m denied
I envied those who can fly
They told me to abandon my pride
Until my eyes go dry
I only wished for a life gone tranquil
With my love only for you
Yet my heart dropped like ‘n anvil
Facing all I cannot undo
‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back
Once again into the light
I’ll chase away that freight
For you only to smile’
Thunder ‘n rain drumming in the air
I stare silently into the abyss
Seeking for only a light to flare
A light you would never miss ”