//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: The Remains of a Filly 
// Story: Chimes In the Dark 
// by Faindragon 
//------------------------------//


Chimes In the Dark - Chapter 12: The Remains of a Filly

NOTE: Grammar not corrected


The chime echoed through the temple, found its way through the hallways and rooms. It reached the throne room, reached the mare sitting on the throne. In her hoof gleamed a translucent orb; a white light glowing softly from inside of it.
“You have failed me, Snowfang. Your mission was simple, kill Notharam; still you have failed me. Not just by letting him survive but also by getting yourself killed. Now is the question; what should I do with you?” She said; her voice as cold as ice.

The orb became, if possible, even whiter. The mare tilted her head; listening to the soul in her hoof.
“No Snowfang, I will not give you a second chance. Not after that you failed me this hard; after all I have done for you did you just go and fail me. I saved you after your mate’s little brawling with Thunder and Notharam; I saved you when you was wounded and could not move. You would have died without me up there in the cold north. And now I gave you your chance for revenge; I served you first Thunder and then Notharam on silver plates before you. And you dared to fail me with killing Notharam, he is still alive and I am not pleased Snowfang. You have not just failed me, Snowfang; you have also failed your mate, the one you swore to revenge. And most importantly, you broke a direct order from me! You didn’t kill Thunder as I told you, instead you toyed with him, TORTURED him. So no Snowfang; I will not forgive you. In fact, I cannot even use you as a sacrifice, the ritual demands pony souls. You are worthless to me.” 

The orb flickered in panic, the panic clear for anypony with an eye for it. The mare didn’t care anymore, she used her hooves to press away the soul, destroying it once and for all; erase it from existence.

She laughed out; she had known from the start that Snowfang wouldn’t have a chance. Still she found this… delight in talking with the souls. They were so vulnerable before her, as she had once been vulnerable before others. She shifted her gaze to the little filly in front of her. She looked upon what she had done and then nodded; lifting away the now bloodied knife and changed her magic to drop the knife and pick up the quill instead. The little filly flinched at the sound of the knife hitting the stone; she cried and sobbed from what the knife had done to her, tears of what was about to happen.

The quill made the eleventh line; eleven chimed had passed. She smiled for herself; Notharam would appreciate her work with his daughter. Her horn glowed as the filly faded away.

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Notharam could feel a lump of sorrow in his chest, his heart ached. Zinky... Dead? No, it couldn't be. He was not going to lose his daughter again. This place was only toying with him; he wouldn't admit that his daughter was dead before he saw her body.
"Thank you, Mistrunner. I would not have been able to walk if it was not for you."

She gave him a weak smile.
"You are welcome Notharam." She looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

Notharam tried to smile.
"I have felt better, but I'm fine after the circumstances. I cannot help but feel helpless at this point in time thought. We must find Zinky."

Mistrunner’s smile disappeared.
"She really is your daughter isn't she?"

Notharam didn't answer.

"You shouted it at that wolf before. And now when I think about it; she did have the same coat and eyes as Silverstar had."

"Zinky is my daughter, and I failed to protect her as I promised." Notharam said; his voice thick with sorrow.

"But why didn't you say anything earlier?" Mistrunner asked, her face mirroring the sorrow he felt.

"I didn't know it before. Silverstar died when she gave birth and I couldn't take care of the filly. I left her at a home for homeless foals while I searched for a way to earn some bit. The only answer was the army. When I returned had she been adopted by another family. I was too ashamed to search for her; I was sure she had it better where ever she where than she would ever have with me."

Mistrunner had tears in her eyes.
"Then why didn't you say anything before, when we first arrived here?"

"I didn't know then; nor would it change a thing. We have stayed here for too long, I believe that Zinky still is alive. I want to find her before it is too late."

Noharam saw that Mistrunner wanted to ask more question, but to his relief did she only nod.
"Yes, let us go. I don't like this place nor do I like the sight of that corpse; it makes my spine chill." She pointed towards Snowfang’s corpse with a hoof.

“I can feel it as well, something is not right with that corpse. I cannot say what; I have never felt anything like it before. The only thing I can say is that it isn’t natural.” He started to trot towards one of the hallways.
“I’m not sure where Zinky is; but I can feel that she is alive. Deep down in my heart I just know it.”

Mistrunner silently took up the lantern. She followed him and together did they walk into one of the hallways; leaving the room and Snowfangs corpse behind them.

The hallways kept going; the gray stone unchanged. Notharam did not like this place; he didn’t like it at all. The last traces of his wrath had finally released its grasp of his body, leaving behind an emptiness that Notharam wasn’t sure that he wanted to fill. Suddenly he felt how all the others feelings rushed back to him; overwhelming him. He staggered under the sudden rush of feelings in his veins. Anger and hopelessness rushed side by side with the even stronger emotions of sorrow and hate. He had to find Zinky.

His mind cried out to him; begged him to see reason. ‘Stop following your heart and start to follow your mind. The walls have chosen a new sacrifice, Zinky must be dead already otherwise they wouldn’t have chosen a new sacrifice. Work towards saving Mistrunner and yourself. Give up the hope of finding Zinky alive; it will only lead towards your own destruction. Your own as well as Mistrunner’s destruction, you don’t want it to lead to that do you?’ But he ignored his mind; the heart was stronger in this question.

He could feel how the emotions were pushed back; lifting the cloud from his mind. The anger, hate and helplessness were pushed down to a faint whispering in the back of his mind; their influence over his veins disappearing. Left was only the sorrow he felt; the sorrow of losing something you had forgotten you had. Still he couldn’t let the thought go. Zinky was alive; he didn’t know how he knew it, only that he did. He could feel it deep down in his heart; Zinky was alive here somewhere and he had to find her. The sorrow filled the empty space after the wrath. He felt how tears streamed down his cheeks as he walked. Still did his mind lose over his heart; the sorrow after Zinky, the hope to find her alive was stronger than anything else. Mistrunner didn’t seem to notice anything.

Mistrunner walked a few feet in front of him, looking from side to side; tilting her head as to listen to something far away. She stopped in the middle of a step; her eyes wide in terror as she turned to face Notharam. It was as if she didn’t see him, as if she looked right through him; eyes locked at an invisible spot in the distance. She slowly shook her head; her eyes getting back their focus again. She dropped the lantern; it felt to the stone floor and rolled away a bit before stopping, lighting up the surroundings with a pale blue light. Mistrunner trembled as she spoke, clearly afraid of something.
“It is something hiding out there. It is calling for me, wants to lure me into the darkness.” She spun around as if she tried tolocate the source of the voice she had heard. Notharam quickly wiped away the tears from his cheeks, no need to worry her about his condition.

“It feels as if I were observed by the walls. It feels as they close in on me, as if they want to tell me something. But I can’t hear them; it sounds like the wind that goes through the leaves a silent night.” Mistrunner said still looking around in terror.
Notharam slowly walked over to Mistrunner and gently nudged her with his muzzle.
“It will be alright Mist; we will get out of here. We will find Zinky and get out of here. I will not let that maniac get us as well. Do you hear me? I have yet to see the walls that can keep me in one place for long.” He tried to smile at her, tried to put all his faith in that smile, tried to soothe Mistrunner with it. “Somehow we will get out of here.”

Mistrunner looked at him; some of the terror had disappeared from her face.
“I hear you Notharam. I wish I could believe you, everything feels so… hopeless right now. Zinky is gone, we have no idea where she went or what happened to her, you are wounded in more than once place; it’s a miracle that you are alive.” She said, her voice trembling.

As if the wounds had heard what Mistrunner said did they suddenly start to release a wave of pain through Notharam’s body. Notharam staggered under the sudden pain, his breath found its way out of him and his eyes lost their focus. Black dots danced in front of his eyes; threatened to overwhelm his eyesight. The pain clouded his mind. And then, as suddenly as it had come did the pain disappear; leaving behind a memory he would rather forget. Mistrunner didn’t seem to have notice at all; she had tilted her head as if she listened to something in the distance again.

Notharam started to worry about Mistrunner. Deep down did he understand what it meant that the walls spoke to Mistrunner; still he didn’t want to think about what it meant, he ignored it.
“Let us keep going Mist, we cannot stand still here in the middle of the hallway; anything can lurk in the shadows.”

Mistrunner looked at him and opened her mouth as to speak. She closed it shut and looked away, then opened it once again.
“You are right Notharam; we cannot linger in one place for too long.” She slowly walked over to the lantern. “I only hope that we find Zinky and that she is okay. This is not the place for a filly to be alone in.” She picked up the lantern and started to trot forward; she didn’t look back to see if Notharam followed or not. Something was wrong with Mistrunner but Notharam couldn’t figure out what it was.

Notharam didn’t care to keep count on how many times the hallway had changed, neither did he care of how many rooms they had been through. The only thing he cared about was getting out of here, leaving the temple behind him once and for all. They walked in silence; they had nothing to speak about. Notharam could feel how they were getting closer to Zinky he had no idea about how he could feel it, only that he did. And he was right; they would soon get to see Zinky again.

It was in a hallway that Notharam saw it; a small shape that lay upon the cold stone floor. The light from the lantern illuminated the scene; gave it a blue glow. The little shape was not bigger than a foal, its color impossible to say; its coat was covered in blood. The foals right leg had been ripped apart; blood streaming out from the various wounds in it. The little foal opened her eyes, her head in the direction of Notharam and Mistrunner. Notharam wanted to scream, wanted to do anything. 
It was impossible for him to mistake the color of the eye that tried to focus upon him; that jade green eye. The left eye socket gaped empty. The little foal in front of him was not any foal. It was a filly; it was Zinky.

Notharam galloped forward to the filly on the ground, carefully embraced it with his hooves.
“Don’t move Zinky, everything will be fine.” Tears started to stream down his face.
“Im sorry Zinky, I was never there for you. I promised to protect you, both now and before, but I failed you every time; I was never able to protect you. But don’t worry Zinky, everything will be okay, we will get out of here. Don’t worry, I will protect you. Daddy will protect you.”

Notharam didn’t care for the blood that dripped and smeared into his coat, nor did he care for the tears that streamed down his cheeks.  His only thought was at the small, torn body of the filly in his hooves. He wanted to scream, he wanted to… he didn’t know what he wanted. The tears hit the filly, who painfully opened the eye she had left; trying to focus her eye at Notharam. The cold membrane of death had started to spread over the eye; she didn’t have long left. She opened her mouth, drawing some painful breath, her whole body trembled of the pain now; tears had formed in the left eye.

“Daddy?”
Notharam didn’t know what to say, he couldn’t do anything but look as the small filly, his filly, slowly drifted into the cold hooves of death. He hugged the body closer to his own, tried to warm it with the heat from his own body. The filly went colder and colder for each second. Notharam couldn’t hold it inside him any longer, he screamed out all his sorrow and agony, as the little filly drew its final breath.

And the clock chimed.