** Warning for varied descriptions of torture in this chapter.**
The Everfree Forest was a dense, dark and deeply magical place. One could be forgiven for thinking the sun no longer existed, if they partook in a prolonged stay in that mystical place. Skeletal branches snaked between one another, and cancerous growth of vegetation unknown spread indiscriminately across the jungle floor. It was a cramped enclosure of thick air and unnerving sensation. In short, the place was all consuming, and few Ponies would surely last long in there, without their wits about them.
So when a rival sentiment, one that distracted Solar entirely from the happenings and dangers of the Everfree Forest, filled his ears with piercing sound, it could be said that this development was a powerful and surely worthy one.
“We may have arrived too late for the fun…” Remarked Solar gravely, knowing these sounds to be the pained torture of the surviving cultist of the Children of the Solstice.
Truly it was a shame to miss the show, so also thought Neon, who, albeit in a far more expressive fashion, felt a lesser victor in not witnessing the breaking of a most mortal enemy.
“Ugh, sorry Sol. My people aren’t exactly tame. They wait for no Pony.” A curious remark that Solar could all too easily apply to the one speaking it. But perhaps, like many things, everything was relative, which was why the ancient Lunar Guards, now a pale shadow of themselves in the form of a cult of their own, seemed so wild and dangerous to even their supposed allies.
“Don’t worry about it. We are here for answers.” Solar reassured, keeping his mind firmly on the task at hoof, that being the act of good old interrogation. What was occurring now could have been this, but Solar wouldn’t put it past the Disciples to be currently performing some ancient mystical ritual upon the enemy. “But maybe we have enough still to drill into a hoof or two.”
This was a promise that instilled a great amount of delight in his Thestral companion. With a little screech like laugh that was a staple of their race, Solar too felt his spirits rise, knowing that whatever happened, vengeance may be inflicted upon a disease that was all too much an insult to Luna.
The two Shadows then entered the clearing, now looking upon the leader of the Disciples, Speck, as well as around half a dozen extra cultists, an increase on the amount that took part in the ambush.
“Sister, are you here to partake in the bloodletting tradition?” Questioned an all too content Speck, a noticeable few specks of blood on her fur, presumingly from the captive.
Neon, in response, paused. Her mind seemed to race before coming to a relieved conclusion in the form of a fanged smile.
“Oh that!” She exclaimed, before looking to Solar. “Um, not right now.” If Solar knew any better, than he would have said that, during her recent years in the developed north, operating among bustling modern cities and working with Ponies born into relative civilisation, she had somewhat forgotten details of the customs that defined her people. After remembering, Solar could see in her excited eyes that instinct had nearly gotten the better of her, and the ominous request offered had enticed a part of her that would forever remain, however much the contradictory life of Equestria proper tried to hide it. Fortunately, duty and loyalty to the cause at hoof had triumphed in the end and if Solar was to witness whatever heathen practices the Disciples were ready for, then it wouldn’t be at the end of Neon’s hooves.
It was then, after little cause for celebration at her kind’s current lack of enthusiasm for tradition, that Speck’s eyes drifted over to Solar himself, knowing full well that he defiantly wasn’t here to expand his cultural sensitivities.
“And you, Commander Solar?” She asked bluntly, yet notably with less animosity or unsurely then she had ever shown towards him. “Name your excuse.”
Holding his tongue, Solar thought upon his response. Reacting as one would to any other, relatively normal Pony, would prove a mistake. Speck’s entire upbringing, her society, points of references, all were different to his own. Having gained precious respect from the Disciples on the field, now he must maintain that momentum and obtain more, off it.
“You’re right. I’m not here to pretend I’m welcome at something I know nothing about, nor probably would easily understand.” Humility mattered, especially when the guests in question could all too easily abandon the more organised fight sponsored by the NG. The Disciples could simply revert to what they had eternally known, and war as they always had done. “I’m here to simply check up on our prisoner.”
Speck seemed confused, taking a few moments for her eyes to then move over to the Child of the Solstice, his partly flayed flesh and body full of wounds that Solar could never guess came from, tied down upon a broadly wide, but clearly not level rock. A sly smile came to the lips of Speck then who, seeing the uneven stone protrude painfully into the flesh and bone of the rival cultist, walked other to the bleeding form and proceeded to pull on the ends of ropes that held the Pony to the rock. His bounds tightening, and his back forced ever further down into places it could go no further, the scream he omitted, with his roaring cries of pain shot far into the sky, could not little less than totally delight his captors who smiled sickening grins of satisfaction.
“Prisoner? You mean this wretch?” Speck practically stalked her target, who couldn’t even move his head to see where his fate was approaching from. She moved towards the restrained and half dead form of the Pony with pure malice in her eyes and a unquenchable thirst for blood on her tongue, before sliding her hoof delicately across both fur and areas devoid of it entirely. She did not care for the wincing of pain muttered from her captives lips, for on the contrary, the more he squirmed and suffered, the more Speck seemed to salivate. “There is no prisoner here. Only meat now.”
This may have well been the unadulterated, purest of truth. Even if Speck had not been born for a hunger for Pony blood and flesh, then her anger and distaste for the forces of the Day could have easily rectified that.
“I really don’t care what he is. And it will suffice. It knows something, something crucial to the war, and I intend to squeeze it out of him” Speck did not seem moved by Solar’s request. Her interest was a primal one. A craving for both justice and pleasure. Her eyes did not even shift in the slightest while Solar spoke, not while a fervour born of an ancient persecution had consumed all of her common senses.
“It?” She then questioned, her upper lip curling into a snarl as she finally focused on Solar. “To call him that degrades him to the point of…nothingness.” Solar listened carefully as Speck shifted her hunger not to Solar himself, but a wider more consequential circle. This was, undoubtedly, every Pony that considered themselves aligned to the Day. “This fight is not nothing, is it? Nothingness is not the hurt, the misery, the fires that consume everything we are. Nothingness is not this creature, made of sin. He is fully alive, and well aware of his guilt. His immorality and affront to the Mistress is not ‘nothing’, it is an evil.”
These words were not to be discounted as anything less than they were. A reminder that this war was not just to win over some a decadence in society that had simply devolved into corruption. To imbrute the enemy into such a faceless force of destruction, as if it were a mere natural disaster, would only serve to trivialise the fight. Speck was right. The Day was not nothing. It was a band of Ponies, each with their own names and histories. Ponies with families and interests. Real souls with real goals and aspirations. These were very much individuals in their own right, and full of life as they were, they would prove to be the real enemy in need of defeating. Ponies, fellow brothers and sisters once, now forced to battle each other on the field.
And that was exactly how it needed to be, for evil could not belong to anything else but a functioning being with perverse morals and self-determination. The forces of the Day were evil, and because they were, Solar knew that, like Speck and her people had been doing for many years, others would rise to beat back that cruelty.
So really, when this Child of the Solstice, perhaps once capable of being as ordinary as any other Pony, now lay there captive to his oldest enemies, it was no sad thing. To see evil chained up, his body broke down with as much painful justice as may be inflicted, it was a cause for celebration, and listening to Speck speak of the reality of the war, Solar saw the greatness of the day, when evil got what it was finally due.
“Beginning to admire your call of duty, Miss Speck. Your commitment to the daily struggle that I know you’ve been fighting since you were born.” Speck narrowed her predatory eyes, trying to figure Solar out. No doubt that she suspected him of simply agreeing with her to move on, as if she could be so easily bought. Yet as was her commitment to her struggle, so too was the strength of Solar’s own. “The Mistress herself assigned me to my current position of heavy responsibility however. Not just to get rid of me or spare me another fate, but because she trusted me to fulfil its duties to her and all of us, her most loyal servants. Mine is the job focused on the bigger picture, the strategies and manoeuvres that will dictate the outcome of this war!”
Speck stood deathly still as Solar orated his burden. Not once to she betray any hint of alliance or friendship, as one willing to work with Solar’s request might. Her eyes, once uncaring of his arrival, now could not be detached from their gaze if she tried.
“I’m the one, gifted by the one we serve, that will either send Celestia tumbling down from her ivory tower with a noose around her neck, or the one to condemn us to failure and another generational setback. Me! The one standing before you now, telling you the consequences of inaction!”
While Speck did not react, Neon did begin to show signs of concern. Solar’s speech was not one a Pony could charge into battle with, their hearts full on inspiration and vigour. However, the Disciples of the Night, with their centuries old war, were Ponies defined by the austerity of their hope. They never gave up, but to fight as they had done for so long had only resulted in their continued existence. Solar’s talk now, while devoid of the hope they had been abandoned of, was a simple one, and one they could easily understand.
That if even he, the Pony who had committed to an escalation of conflict, and the induvial chosen by Luna herself, could not, or rather was not allowed to win his way, then nopony would. The desire to see the Night triumphant would be set back so far, that perhaps even the everlasting Disciples would not endure this time.
“You speak as if you were chosen to champion all that we are, all that we have fought for.” Speck’s words were sincere, despite what her face currently portrayed. She had begun to trust Solar as an ally, but this was different. Perhaps an inquiry into what reassurance she could be offered, for believing in Luna’s chosen.
“Few have been privileged to understand what she has exalted upon me…” Once a secret, now it seemed that Solar himself could not keep his relationship with Luna under wraps. The Disciples were not Ponies of any gossiping nature by any means, but upon unearthing the meaning of this development, even they could to refrain themselves from shuffling in surprise and disbelief. “I did not ask for this. It was given to me, once I had proven myself worthy enough to wage a crusade of our belief. Incidentally, after so many years of opportunity, and even when the Mistress finally returned in a most pure form, we could not act. Call it what you will, but it seems to me that fate has only now decided, after so long of decline suffered by the land, that I wonder into her interest, and be crowned with the duty of winning this war.” By now, Solar had made his way towards a motionless Speck, enough to even smell the approaching death of the Child of the Solstice.
“You fight our everlasting struggle, Speck. I commend it, but when I say need this…thing…” He spoke severely, indicating towards the tied up captive. “…It’s because I’m trying to win this damned thing! So yes, he is a true evil, but to me, it doesn’t matter in the slightest, because when his head is separated from his body, and sent to his puppeteer, it won’t matter what he previously meant. All that will matter is that the Day see’s the fate awaiting them. The one I’m setting up for them!”
Silence then, as a struggle of wills wrestled among the still camp. In a way, both Speck and Solar were correct. Their respective positions had been born from their experiences thus far. Yet it was only Solar’s now that accounted for the success of both, for only together, wed in union of inevitability for the Day, would victory be found.
Speck’s eyes then left Solar, a historical moment, as they moved back towards the captive, only consideration in their glimmer. She considered Solar’s words and thus, the possibility of this insult to her people personified, not sacrificed in the manner according to her traditions, but executed as a traitor and enemy on the field of battle.
For that was what they had all found themselves in. Not a secret war unknown to the rest of the world, but a momentous opportunity to exterminate the entirety of their enemies, in plain sight of those who would become the grateful.
Solar’s way may have been unorthodox, risky and in comparison to her ways, simple, but now, finally seeing it, it had proven the only way to defeat those had been trying to do all of her life.
And with that, Speck stood back a few steps, away from her prey, relinquishing not only him, but the opposition given towards Solar’s deeper desires.
“He has been drained of more than blood already however.” She noted. “Most uninteresting, but occasionally, something delicious enough emerges to make it all worth it.”
A predictable misfortune, but not one that hopefully averted Solar from his ultimate goal here. No doubt that prior to any luxury of sacrificial massacre, Speck and her people had probably extracted whatever they could in relation to more standard intelligence. In fact, it made sense for the cultist to drip feed such information to his captors. Few prisoners knew nothing, least of all these vile and ancient servants of Celestia’s. Feigning complete ignorance made for a terrible disguise for the truth, and usually had the opposite effect. A suspicion confirmed in the minds of the torturers, that indeed, the prisoner was hiding something.
So while the cultist teased his fate wielders with just enough to move on to what they really wished to perform, their traditions, Solar could not be so easily bought. Only when he was standing here, face to face with his enemy, did he realise that for whatever inherit faults there were, or however different the individual, he trusted the servants of the Night more than any opposing ideology could ever wish for. Neon’s claim thus could not be completely false, for looking upon this true evil, did Solar know for certain that hatred and calamity seldom was hollow of further deceit.
Whatever state this Pony would be left in, by the time Solar had finished with him, some form of validation of Neon’s claim would be extracted and only then would any pleas of death be answered.
“I’ve heard that you guys have something quite juicy you’re withholding from us. Perhaps ancient knowledge you are in need of sharing?” Wasting little time, Solar dived straight in, hoping faintly that perhaps with all the damage done to him so far, the captive might just freely give up what he had left, in fear of suffering even further. But he doubted it.
“Only that the dark will forever fear the light. When the sun rises, its cleansing flame will vanquish all black evil that persists beneath its eternal glow.”
This was but useless rhetoric pressed into the cultists mind by indoctrinating forces. Why else would such a dying form, his voice weak and coarse through countless hours of torture, ensure when the pain could simply end with just a little cooperation? Solar rolled his eyes at the predictability of it all.
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. But let’s move on from that ok? Beyond your blind lust for the sun butt.” Predictable as it was, there proved to be some enjoyment in standing in his position, the contradictory situation the cultist found himself in. “What’s your name?”
Perhaps such a question had not been expected from his mortal enemy, or maybe this kind of personal touch was considered too soft by the Disciples, but regardless, it took back the captive, and that was progress at the very least.
“My mortal label means little now, especially to a beast such as you, infidel.” Again, anticipated, but this time, disappointingly so. It didn’t take a genius to understand that the animosity between the two parallels of Day and Night, and thus their associated groups, was great and irreconcilable. This would allow hatred and misunderstanding to thrive, leading to all sorts of mistrust and insults to swarm in that chasm that separated the sides. So when fanatical religious terminology was thrown around, and Solar was designated as some sort of heretic, it wasn’t surprising. But over belief was an ignorance, and hiding behind its ugly and bloated form ensured the individual could remain there safely, free to continue his verbal attacks like this.
This was a cowardly defiance. Its foundations, based upon arrogance against reality and a deficit of self-reliance.
“It matters a lot actually” Solar pressed, tackling this more intuitive method. “I bet you know who I am.”
This was bait too irresistible to even a simple Guard of Celestia’s. To a crazed worshipper, it was free money. A chance at addressing the Pony who had personally seen to all this recent escalation. The reason they were even here.
“You are Solar Virtue. Slave of the great darkness, and a chief apostate of evil. Our Goddess should have never let you leave her castle alive. What cruel trickery, what malicious magic you must have employed, to escape our holy one’s most infinite wisdom.” Solar had to laugh. The irony had just been too strong. This, on the surface, only seemed to strengthen the cultists resolve, as he looked upon a Pony too uncaring of his ‘truth’, and one who found humour in the seriousness that was talk about ‘wise’ Celestia.
“To be described like that? Wow! I had no idea how sinful I actually was! Is there any hope for me at all? Any chance for me to see the light?” No effort was at all spared to hold back his blatant sarcasm. It was clear to all this was but pure mockery, and that Solar was prodding the captive beast as if he were a disobedient child at the zoo. But if this cultist truly did believe in his reality bankrupt cause, then however derogatory the comments, however much Solar taunted him, faith would not allow this insolence unmet. He had no power or available actions to back it up, but when did that ever matter to a fanatic?
“Mock me all you want demon, but your aggression will be forgotten soon enough. The pain I experience will be temporarily, and after my martyrdom, I will eternally bask in the comforting warm glow of the sun, in a place where your evil cannot ever dream of touching!” Second hoof embarrassment proved to be more than a thing in that moment, as Solar cringed at the propaganda sponsored by the bloodied mouth of one who was in no position to dictate the terms of this conversation. While it did indeed show that faith had created a false sense of security for the cultists, it was nothing that Solar would not delight in crumbling.
“I would not mock somepony so powerfully wise!” He retorted in an exaggerated tone. “Celestia is too perfect for us...” In a way, his words were not devoid of fact. If Celestia was supposedly so great, then it must mean that her true capabilities were not of this earthly realm. Why else would she be so awful here?
“DO NOT DARE TO UTTER HER MORTAL TITLE, YOU AGNOSTIC SCUM! THE POISION THAT FLOWS FROM YOUR LIPS CONDEMNS YOU TO BURN!”
Anger could have simply meant aggression, which would be unsurprising in the cult that dealt death on behalf of Celestia. On further inspection however, this was not heated defiance, but one step made away from the fake path that had been lied to him. This cultist had let his enemy get the better of his faith.
“I’m just saying…” Solar spoke gently as he walked closer to his victim. “If I’m so heretical, does that mean I cannot be redeemed? Is salvation impossible for me?”
There was indeed some wisdom in the prisoner’s words. Solar spoke verbal chaos, designed only to undermine the powers that be. Maybe he was as evil as he was meant to be, but that mattered little, for even if there was some paradise awaiting Celestia’s fools, after he had done with it, those souls that had blindly subjugated themselves to the Day, would come tumbling down to the reality of the world.
That day was not today though. Scoffing to the point of genuine insult, the cultist proved that even if Solar wanted to, few Ponies would accept him to deal in Celestia’s will.
“I am but a humble servant of the Goddess, but through me unwavering faith, I condemn you for the crimes you have inflicted, and those your blackened soul will chose to do in the future. Evil was born when you were, heretic! I, Enkindling Scorch, damn you to the coldest pits of hell, to have your very blood freeze with all the other apostates we have cleansed, in who’s treacherous company, you shall know no forgiveness!”
Some success had been found finally. In the form of a prescribed name given by the masters of the Children of the Solstice. Still, if this was the title proudly worn by this Pony, then Solar could not care for the birth name of the individual that had long been burned away by his religion.
“But if your God is so strong…” Solar retaliated, tugging on the ropes that bound the Pony known in short as Enkindle. “Then surely it’s not only within their power, but prerogative to rise over any evil, to forgive me? That is what makes her the better Pony, is it not? To show true courage.”
Solar had seen it done before at the hooves of Speck, but seeing the ropes tighten, restricting Enkindle closer and closer into the jagged rock, was still satisfying. Yet any tighter, and Enkindling’s spine would simply snap, putting him out of his misery.
His pain, instead, had to be prolonged.
“N-Never!” Enkindling cried out through gritted and bloodied teeth. “You are a spawn of the darkness to our light. Until the ends of the world, we will fight to incinerate you from reality!”
Solar smiled, turning to make a pick from the assorted tools that were at his disposal, on a blood stained stone next to him. Starting simply, a knife was chosen, but one placed above the nearby roaring fire, allowing the blade to glow red with severe heat.
Noting the reactions, around the camp, at his next choice of unlocking the secrets that may be, there were few surprises. Many Disciples simply watched on with curiosity, interested to see if this outsider could be as effective as they were against the mortal enemy. Their leader, Speck, noticeably raised an eyebrow as if to mentally comment on Solar’s chosen tool. However, compared to her more ‘civilised’ kinspony, Neon, Speck’s reaction was more of a professional excitement, an eagerness that harmlessly judged Solar’s tools. Neon, on the other hoof, while far from lamenting the approaching pain of Enkindle, did not share the bubbling excitement of her people. She watched Solar, while calmly indeed, but perhaps of a more calm concern variety, which admittedly puzzled Solar.
Still, he had waited long enough, and screams would not squeal themselves.
“Fair enough.” Solar noted on Enkindling’s shield of faith. “Then maybe we should test your belief. See if we can strengthen your faith, against the real thing…”
An ominous message, received upon all too aware ears. Few Ponies could doubt this Enkindling was a tough soul, most likely one strong enough to fight many horrendous battles. Coupled with his undying belief in a lie, this only ensured a Pony that could not be denied the quality of a certain strength. Solar would not brake him here, as the red hot knife approached exposed and defenceless flesh, not when the victim was as tenacious as he easily was. This was, coincidently, the same stage as the action he was about to perform.
Peeling away the outer shell, so that the soft vulnerability inside may be acquired.
Enkindling knew this. While he chose to commit to his residence, Solar could see, in those all too indoctrinated eyes, that no matter how personal your faith, regardless of the insignificance of one’s body compared to massiveness of belief, physical pain would forever be a thing, and inflicted by one as hateful as him, then that pain could burn away any shadow cast by a god.
“Almighty sun that watches over us all, give me the strength I need to-“ Solar could have sworn he heard Enkindling mutter a whole holy books worth of prayers, or whatever he justified as comfort enough to push through the horror now about to be inflicted upon him. In reality, it just seemed the murmurs of a mad pony, and the sooner the flayed flesh got him to scream, the sooner that moaning insanity may come to an abrupt end.
“Here we go now” Solar chirped, bringing hellish steel to soft fur. With a sizzle and a putrid smell of burnt body matter, so did the skin peel away, as Solar carved away in an all too liberal fashion.
Try as he may, this was an attack on decency that few Ponies could escape bravely. Enkindling’s screams somehow found shelter in every nook and cranny of this dense forest, its echoes flowing in-between tress and even into darkness. He did not beg for mercy unsurprisingly, but that could not hide the fact that, no matter how tough a Pony, there was always a degree of pain that would scar a soul. As Solar’s plaything became naked of skin and fur, and the red underneath sored to unholy levels, he became careful to not outright destroy Enkindling. His tied up legs, now deprived of much that once made them identifiable as those belonging to a Pony, could have bled their owner out, such was the extent of outer casing removed. The art of cauterizing though, could not be understated. Banking on reserves of fanatical strength, Solar knew that Enkindling would not yet pass out or die from the agony inflicted as leaking blood boiled away, and exposed flesh sizzled into a burned pulp. By each stroke smoothly inflicted by Solar, only a charred, deformed mess followed in his path, with sickening screams accompanying them, as if Enkindling was intentionally trying to mask the sound of his own skin being sliced away, and his muscle becoming cauterized.
Solar knew that this quality was not one of mortals however.
“Feeling any closer to your god?” Solar asked sadistically, pausing his torture, to an Enkindling, inebriated on pain and torment. By now, any more of this flaming flaying would render the subject incapable of cooperating, much less to recite the prayers he had been trying unsuccessfully to cling on to while his nightmare endured.
“Y-y-you…a-are….” Solar could not doubt his prior judgment. Enkindling was surely a strong individual, and his current difficulty in even speaking was no weakness of him. Some may have called him an ego stroker, but Solar was proud that he could reduce such a stubborn Pony such as this, to a state like this, where even the incoming insults were too hard a thing to attempt.
“A what?” Mocked Solar, if only so he could switch his attention from the repulsive smell filling the air which was the stench of burning flesh. The idea of now using any willing surrounding Thestral, who judging from their dilating pupils, adored this smell, to assist was quickly discarded however. After all, he needed a confession, not a served banquet. “Come on! You think Celestia would take pride in seeing one of her most devoted servants struggling to even speak?”
Antagonising for sure, but not apparently enough. Enkindling took pained breaths, each sounding as if they would be his last. Wheezing with blood shot eyes, no retort came even before the look of horror as his eyes drifted down to Solar’s work, which, predictably, only served to cause even more dumb shock into Enkindling.
“The bitch would surely be disgusted, seeing you squirm so much when presented with a little flame. The irony is too much!”
Still though, no compliance. Solar demanded retaliation, for whatever good it would do for Enkindling. Anger, even in his default state of religious fanaticism, would be a failure. Compromised, it would be another step closer to confession. A damaged mind was one unwilling to live with its collapsed resistance, so unlike Solar, who had never let failure become him, Enkindling would realise his efforts had become futile and thus would be more likely to spill the beans.
When this moment did not come, Solar thought upon what he had just said. These were, presumingly, normal Ponies, physically speaking. Their minds and souls had been warped, but their bodies were as they had been since birth. Weak. Mortal.
Flaying would only get Solar so far. Instead of skinning Enkindling like he was a potato, it would be irony that would come to his rescue, and break Enkindling without potentially killing him.
“Can you see it any longer?” Solar asked seriously, almost whispering into Enkindling’s ear. Unperturbed, the Child of the Solstice stared blankly into the sky, his lips flickering as they said a silent prayer. All effort was being put into ignoring his tormentor, and he was doing well. Yet again, while zealous to the point of relentlessness, he was but a simple mortal. When the blade did not bite again, and the feeling of his body being ripped apart did not restart, Enkindling blinked.
Solar then struck, knowing the bait had been taken.
“You can’t, can you?” His tone was almost solemn, as if he were echoing the hopelessness that deserted in Enkindling’s heart. “The sun, even when it should be high in the sky…completely blacked out…” Solar’s words rang true. The Everfree forest was a deeply unnatural place, even to one who had lived long in the dark and decrepit parts of the world. To a pony such as Enkindling, extremists who fought for the Day, and more importantly, Celestia’s sun, this was as bad a place as it possibly could get.
Endless shadow and darkness. Trees so chaotically lawless that it could blot out even the mighty sun. Such an abyss could only be eclipsed in horror by a land blessed by an endless moon, the thing that the Day zealots fought so hard to prevent. Had he not put as much mental effort into it as he surely was, then Enkindling could be easily forgiven for thinking all light, the grace glowed by the sun, had been brought extinct.
In conclusion, the Everfree forest was basically the worst place Enkindling could ever find himself in.
“You’ll find little peace here. A never ending umbra that will extinguish that flame in your heart. You will never find such a place of pure darkness like this.”
The Everfree forest was an infamous place. Few Ponies had not heard of its inner dangers, and the horrors that lay within. Even now, surrounded by allies and friends, Solar did not trust it. It was not some dark associate of the Night, as Solar suggested. It was a gloomy place yes, but its loyalties were to nopony. Through its chaotic disorder, the old forest was no ponies friend, even if many a Thestral found themselves at home within it.
This was its feeling to Solar, a Pony who would delight into replicating its night like ambience to the rest of the world. So to a Pony, who was essentially the antitheses of this, Solar could not imagine the internal panic now being felt.
Enkindling was still fighting well. His body had been long cracking now, with defeat in battle, and then torture by both Speck and Solar to ensure that. But through that decreasing effort, fear etched through. He knew, without his beautiful sun to comfort him, he was a very lonely Pony. His weaknesses and dreads had been highlighted by Solar, who now prevented him from dwelling on anything but his horrifying solitude.
All mortals had been young once. A child was naturally afraid of abandonment, of being disowned by what gave them strength. Most of all, most children were, whether they tried to deny it or not, afraid of the dark.
“Allow me to shine a little light for you.” Solar finally uttered, his voice full of finality for the one receiving it.
It was incredibly ironic that, for a cult that worshipped the sun, light and all things associated with that ball of fire in the sky, its members were just as susceptible and sensitive to flame as any other Pony was. So with a roaring fireplace just there, Solar thought it a rather large waste not to inflict this painful irony upon Enkindling, so that he may receive the light he was currently missing.
Lighting a decently large branch of unknown wood, all witnessed the torch come to life with ferocious and fiery glory. It burned well, without consuming its fuel source too rapidly, and when placed to Enkindling’s hooves, more than hot enough to grill. This was far from the worst fate awaiting Enkindling, who grew ever more pained and panicked as his hooves grew red and nothing he could do could hold back the increasing agony. He did not scream, but panting became inevitable and eyelids were shut so tight that Solar believed the eyeball underneath would only be deformed by pressure.
“Hmm, you’re not handling this quite well. I thought you’d appreciate the warmth you worship.”
Then Solar had a new idea. One that, without shame, allowed him a vicious grin. Burning Enkindling like he was just a bonfire to be lit was wasteful, unimaginative and frankly, ineffective. This was no dedicated chamber designed to inflict new forms of punishment, but Solar had already tools enough to maximise misery for his captive.
“Bring me his armour.” He ordered to his audience, who only looked to their leader in conformation. Speck watched intently, betraying little enjoyment that she was surely feeling. At first, Solar thought her about to decline his demand, but as if curious to witness foreign methods, she nodded to her people to retrieve the golden plate suit that Enkindling had been disguised within. Promptly acquired, two Disciples approached Solar, who had begun to appreciate their more noble savagery that they physically portrayed.
“Heat them up in the fire. I want the gold to practically become red before I use them.” While speaking, Solar did not look to her new assistants, but to Enkindling. His ears still functioned, and listening to what Solar had in plan for him, could only be an alarming process. It was impossible for Solar to picture himself in Enkindling’s position, for he would rather die than let Celestia’s minions capture him, but to await what the next mutilating torment was coming for him, unable to escape and only able to wait stilly as if he were begging for it, that was a terrifying prospect. Watching his armour lose its glamourous shine, only to be replaced by the destructive shade of fire, allowed him only more excruciating time to fear his approaching end. What horrors were playing havoc in his mind, Solar could not say, only that with every passing second, Enkindling grew only more panicked, as if he were on death row, but without a conclusive, painless termination of his torture.
“Good” Solar then noted, happy with the blazing fever of the metal. “Now let the triumphant servant of the sun don his protection yet again, so that he may be reminded of what omniscient force he fights for!”
The all too clear instruction was one heard with horrid realisation for Enkindling in particular. Solar in that moment, liked to believe that this victim of the most cruel and horrible form of frying was a Pony used to dishing out vicious punishment. He thought it very fitting that this Pony, who had most likely caused unimaginable suffering for many an innocent, now was forced to experience that very same pain. Poetry in action, one made all too satisfying as the sizzling plate, uncomfortably held by Disciples who struggled with the heat even at great distance from the metal via the use of sticks and prongs, was brought ever closer to a Pony who could never imagine how much he would scream, in just a few short moments.
“Keke” Came the laugh from Neon that Solar once thought unnatural. “Don’t like your meat rare, Sol?”
Solar smiled. An apt joke for the situation he thought and one that dark humour was surely meant for, when it was the forces of the Day as the targets of said joke.
“Apologies Ne. Not total Thestral just yet. It’s well done for me!” Instantly Solar realised he had again addressed Neon in a possibly all too friendly and casual way. His eyes however, and full attention, was directed towards Enkindling only. Seeing that putrid slave of malevolence realise that he was in effect, about to be entrapped in a molten steel prison, was delightful. Where could he go? Trapped already, those ropes that now appear a respectful luxury to the hellish restraints that were to be tailored to his already broken form.
“If that choice is a juicy sign for what’s about to come to the evil white one, then Sol, you’re a dangerous one!” While slightly more appreciatory than usual, Solar would prefer that total eradication that Neon spoke of to be a reality, and not just some friendly remark. That victory over the Day was about to continue here, until Neon spoke up once more. “It won’t…get him too soon though, yeah?”
Solar blinked, unsure if he had heard that correctly.
“You doubting his punishment, Neon?” Solar asked inquisitively, at what he saw was an unsure Neon. “He’ll crack, even if it’s his last few moments with that oven of armour.” It truly was a fitting end for Enkindling, to be cooked alive like the herd animal he was to Celestia. His skin was incinerate, his flesh would tenderise and his insides would bake until they were brown, and only then, as the finished sacrifice he was, would he be sent to Celestia’s dining table. After all, Solar did not eat meat, so it would be selfish of him not to share his culinary skills with Celestia.
“Tasty, but he’s pretty weak as it is, even without him being such a pathetic waste of a blood bag.”
This was not patriotic talk coming from Neon. Faithful and dedicated to victory it was far from. Why object to the pain generously gifted to those who deserved little less? Why doubt him, the one Pony who would ensure the destruction of the ancient foe? Solar liked Neon, for she was an entertaining if ununiformed warrior, but recently, he couldn’t help but occasionally have a doubt of his own. One regarding Neon’s appetite for this war.
“The good guy always wins, right?” Solar asked plainly, much to Neon’s lack of a response. “To him, we are the villains here. He won’t allow himself to die before he sees me fail in frustration”.
But Neon did not seem convinced. Frowning as she arrived at an answer incompatible with Solar’s own, her tone now became a little more defiant.
“All he needs to do is give up and take whatever information he has with him to the grave!” Passionate as her words were, Neon was careful to not let Enkindling hear of any easy way out. To Solar however, it mattered little if a now screaming Enkindling knew of this or not. With only a few pieces of plate covering his legs, death was surely an attractive way out now. Yet Solar was his mission personified. There was simply no way Enkindling would perish knowing Solar was still at large.
“We are heretics, Ne.” Solar stated confidently. “Ponies who follow his ‘true belief’, are simply Ponies corrupted by the theological norms created by the status quo. Thus they are weak, short sighted fools, who place the life of the individual above all else. Celestia has showed this many times with her emphasis on ‘her little Ponies’. We have nothing to fear.”
Nodding with a smile, Solar ignored Neon’s look of confusion so that he may instruct further pieces of armour to be attached to Enkindling’s riving body. By now, they was no reprieve, no escapes from relentless pain. Placing one’s hoof, accidently, into a fire was a shocking and unwished for occasion. Never was the hoof in the flames for more than a flashing moment, such was the barged pain. So when thousand degree metal, practically stuck to some ponies flesh, was not allowed to be moved, then what worse fate could a Pony imagine?
Enkindling could not wriggle into a state of lessened pain. His cracking screams, causing his throat to sore and bleed, could not demand help. His entire body, every inch of his mortal form, was now company to a moulded garb of scorching torment. It did not take long for more pieces of heated metal to be added, and not long indeed for Enkindling’s once relatively normal looking appearance to become a horribly deformed and burnt insult of his former self.
The more he tried to resist and escape the pain, the more he pressed his body into the source of it. Solar was enjoying this sight of a Pony cursed by him, through the use of creative affliction.
“Enough!” He finally proclaimed, ordering Enkindling’s reprieve just in time so that the now charred mess of a Pony did not totally roll his eyes for the last time. “Now, something you wanted to say?”
Solar did not say it, but his seductive, inviting tone suggested it more than anypony could hope for. All Enkindling needed to do now, with the only other option being the heated armour placed atop him again, was to divulge just one little secret. It was an easy end of the torture, a blessing if he could ever ask for one.
It was one he would rather spend in and out of consciousness, and spent his last few moments muttering incomprehensible religious gibberish.
Solar scowled. This was not defiance. Not a moment of true bravery in the face of further torment. Enkindling, at this point, had made no conscious decision to resist and find comfort in his faith. While requiring more effort, that resistance was but extra opportunity to pick apart the mortal soul of a Dayling via the use of suffering. Time intensive it may be, but a show of strength from Enkindling gave Solar that satisfaction of having his victim’s form tested until failure. A persecuting ablation into the heart of the enemy, designed only to terminate the will of those opposing Solar’s own.
“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Solar cried, his anger becoming real. “You don’t get to tap out of yet another reality here! Pay attention to your incinerated body!” But Enkindling could not be described as a Pony capable of even understanding the shared language anymore. His eyes frequently flickering and rolling into the back of his head, there was never a more failed sight then this one. To an outsider, here only now lie a zombie of some sort, who could only gargle simple and strained sounds which were but a remnant of the prayers relied upon earlier. Enkindling was a failed experiment, a Pony that so close to death even, still clung on to the spiritual trash that plagued his mind before it was overloaded with pain.
Solar now felt paranoia creep into his being. If any of his allies did mutter behind his back however, and if they did place blame upon him for this sight, then they were surely in the wrong. To become a broken form like Enkindling now was, it was but a sign that corruption sunk deeper than anything else. Its poisonous claws consumed its victim even into the grave. A follower of the truth, as Solar was, would not shame himself by becoming whatever Enkindling now was. His correct belief would prevent him from sickening the Night with deathly offensiveness. Simply put, no true servant of the dark Mistress, and no Pony touched by Luna’s personal love would have be so devoid of dignity and loyalty to conviction, that he would become a muttering, broken and blasphemous of the likes that lay before him, constricted by charred rope.
“I SAID LOOK AT ME WHILE IM TORTURING YOU, DECEIEVER!” The flaw in Celestia’s minions had proved to be a fatal one. Like a machine broken into repeating the same repetitive task, but excluding any noteworthy results. When damaged, her soldiers did not either die like a lesser Guard would, nor would they fight tooth and nail until the bitter end, like the brave warriors of the Night. They simply broke, leaving a form insolvent of what made a Pony a Pony.
“Bucking drone of an infidel!” Solar cried into the tree tops, not denying his frustration at all. Perhaps there was a moment of concern that Enkindling would simply resist well, using his belief to frustrate Solar’s plans. An even lesser worry was that, like Neon had said, all information would be taken into the afterlife, allowing his body to give up being a better tactical decision on Enkindling’s part then any alternative. These were not outcomes desired, but there predictable in their nature. A form now reduced to a muttering meat bag, only a nature resembling a broken record remaining, was neither foreseen nor hoped for.
“Sol we-“interjected the voice of a downcast Neon. Solar did not see her, nor care for her words, but for whatever reason, her voice did not seem an opposition to his own commanding being, but a collective sense of responsibility and tending. It was a warm feeling, but not as warm as the hot metal prongs that had been resting in the fire.
“YOU’RE MINE, ENKINDLING!” Solar yelled as he took the bear tool into his hooves. The ferocious heat was felt, even though the hardened material that now owned it. “YOU DO NOT GET TO FALL INTO FURTHER INSANITY WITHOUT MY SAY SO!” With failure to plan or care, Solar became determined that the scolding pain that now consumed his hooves would be nothing in comparison to what his victim would feel. Slamming the heated prongs aimlessly into flesh, Solar pinched and twisted whatever flesh he could easily pick at. Through gritted teeth and eyes so wide that they perfectly reflected the roaring flames, Solar, again and again, tugged at tendons and ripped nerves apart in a bloody hot mess. By now, much to his ignorance, Neon had grown uncomfortable with this unleashed rage. She watched upon an unrestrained Solar with sad eyes, but mad no attempt to stop what negligence he was showing his captive. Perhaps she thought it a lost cause, or perhaps, deep down, this was a development in Solar that she could not stop.
These were thoughts on her mind solely. Solar’s own was one defined by its simplicity.
Hurt Enkindling.
Make him scream.
Make him forsake his God.
Please the Night with the blood of its enemies.
“DAMN IT! SPEAK! YOUR SUN WILL BURN OUT BEFORE I DO!” Throwing away the useless prongs, Solar resorted to a far more primal and basic form of aggression, that of beating sense out of Enkindling with scarred and burnt hooves. Solar had not given up on tools because of the seemingly disproportionate damage he was taking instead, but because he simply could not resist finishing what he had started in the field. Enkindling wasn’t a Pony to him anymore. Not because of the individuality bleeding from the cultist, but because back then, during the ambush, he was just another target, another Dayling in need of butchering to appease the honest reality that the Night blessed the world with.
If anypony did not see the loyalty offered by what the Night gave, and if they did not humble themselves into the friendship born of necessity and struggle, then perhaps any secret information was useless. After all, the goal was simple. Bury the servants of the Day where light would never shine.
“CYNICAL FOOL! YOU DO NOT SEE HOW YOU’VE SCREWED EQUESTRIA!” Solar’s cries were now but a backing track to the real sound of his hooves smashing against bone and flesh. These were heavy, indiscriminate hits, designed to break bone and traumatise organs through sheer force of attack. Solar was strong, and his hits were not designed to be gentle. A fitting end to the Child of the Solstice then, who whether or not he was aware of his surroundings, would find his end at the strength of his ancient enemy.
“BLEED FOR ME YOU-“Solar stopped. His hooves were red with biological debris, and that was a sight that pleased him. Yet the next hit, possibly the defining one, did not proceed as planned. The next thing Solar knew in his restrained silence, were two things. Neon and Speck, beside him, the latter far less apprehensive than the former. The second thing, and the orchestrator behind the current inaction, was the dying muttering of Enkindling, now transitioning once more in comprehensible, and possibly even conscious exchange.
“L……L…..” He began, so weak that few would believe his voice still existed. “Y…Y-you….Fools….”
Above all predictions, both unexpected and not, this truly was a miraculous uncertainty. So much so in fact, that with an almost excited hoof placed on Solar’s shoulder by Neon, any anger regarding the deformed insult could not occur.
“What?!” Neon demanded, jumping on this opportunity of speech. “Tell us why we are!” Enkindling had risen again practically, and his return to quasi life was one that stunned Solar into surrendering his interrogation role to Neon. He now simply watched as Enkindling, his eyes bloodshot and his body a pure mess, slowly but surely, spoke his fading words.
His last words.
“Y-your Princess…..”
Luna. So little had been thought of her barring her overreaching cause. To be held by that majestic being was an honour that Solar had not quite contemplated fully. New as it was in its longevity, especially to an immortal such as Luna herself, it was love for her that brought Solar here, inflicting unimaginable horror on an enemy she had barely considered this past millennia. Yet when this member of an ancient cult spoke of her, he spoke not only through his burning hatred for her, but of an authority that Solar could not underestimate in its own longevity. Its everlasting struggle against all that Luna represented.
“What of her?” Now spoke Speck, approaching with ears pricked. Ever so in these intense situations, her voice was a calm, eerily one. The other side of the same coin that encompassed Enkindling’s school of thought. Thus her concern, albeit a freakishly composed one, was an authority that outlasted Solar’s own by unimaginable length.
“I…I-I would have thought…..you…above….all…w-would have known….” A point made personal now for Speck, who seemed somewhat rattled from her stone like persona, but this was a statement made for all under the Night. It was one that if Enkindling were not struggling to even speak sentences, would have been one said with an almighty smirk. A victorious, satisfying smirk.
“This…isn’t the first time…Luna has entertained the Humans…. She’s doing the same thing…she did…. last time…” A blood spitting coughing fit followed, so violent in its severity that it just about cut Enkindling’s remaining minutes down to mere seconds. For him, fortune had finally been found. Finally, his prayers had been answered, and martyring himself in a spectacular verbal fashion, it was he, who had the last laugh.
“And just like last time…history repeating itself…will be the end…of her….”
And so, at last managing a triumphant smirk, the corpse like state of Enkindling came to an end, his purpose of serving his false gods becoming legitimised through his last ending swipe at his enemies.
He may not have seen it through bleeding eyes and a body so comatose that it was a miracle that it managed any last words at all, but his final statement was not one fought against by any of his oppressing captors. They were silent, stunned and utterly shocked. Their faces were numb, and their once violent natures had been humbled.
As had their previous beleifs.