//------------------------------// // Unexpected Visitors // Story: For the Centaur Who Has Everything // by Starswirl the Beardless //------------------------------// In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. The words marched through his mind just as the breaths slunk through his large, flared nostrils: slowly, methodically, and perfectly in control. In. Out. In. Out. Control. That was all that mattered in the end. In. Out. In. Out. What separates a cunning warrior from a blood-maddened berserker? Control. In. Out. In. Out. What prevents a brilliant mind from slipping into madness? Control. In. Out. In. Out. What places the master on top and the slave below? Control. In. Out. In. Out. Control was all that mattered. Control shaped lives, forged identities. In. Out. In. Out. Control was the most valuable resource a person could possess. In. Out. In. Out. It was also the resource he possessed in the scantest quantity. In. Out. In. Out. Could he control where he had been? No. Even one as ancient and learned as he did not know how to rewrite one's past. If he had, he surely would have done so long ago. In. Out. In. Out. Could he control where he was? No. The thick stone bars surrounding him, the three-headed dog patrolling the cavern, and the immense doors of his glorified vault saw to that. In. Out. In. Out. Could he control where he would go? Perhaps. It wasn't as outlandish a prospect as one might think. It had happened before, after all. In. Out. In. Out. One thousand years of imprisonment. One thousand years of watching, of guarding, of safekeeping. It had all been for naught. In. Out. In. Out. It had only taken one day, one hour, one blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. One opportunity presented. One opportunity taken. One thousand years undone just like that. In. Out. In. Out. It had happened once. It would happen again. All he needed to do was wait. All he needed to do was be patient. All he needed to do was remain in control of himself, the one thing in his miserable little world he could control. In. Out. In. Out. It was drawing closer. It was drawing closer to him with every second that passed. He did not know from where it would come. He did not know what form it would take. One thing he did know, however. He knew that, when his chance came again, he would never again need another. In. Out. In. Out. The next time would be the last. He would make sure of it. One thousand years of confinement had not dulled his senses; if anything, they had improved them. One thousand years of listening to the silence had sharpened his ears. One thousand years of staring into the gloom had honed his eyes. One thousand years of monotony had given him an almost instinctive sense of when something was awry. So it was that, when the great gate of Tartarus slowly creaked open, he was aware of it almost before it happened. The sound, the unfamiliar, yet unmistakable sound of that titanic portal shifting, slowly reverberated through the still air, making its way to a pair of distinctly bovine ears. As the sound reached them, those ears slowly lifted, taking in the low, steady rumble as well as they were able. The old, wizened face those ears flanked, a face covered with skin as dry and rough as old leather and as red as ancient rust, flexed and shifted as the muscles beneath it stirred to life. A set of thin lips pursed, and a pair of wide nostrils sucked a deep breath past a thick silver nose ring. Two heavy eyelids slowly rose, revealing the blackness that lay behind each, two inky voids affixed with two points of yellow as piercing as any blade ever forged. It was these eyes that gazed outwards, out through the thick bars that stood just a few feet before them. They looked past the soft light that bathed his little plateau, and past the snaky stone bridge that led away into the relative darkness of the rest of the vast cavern. They saw within that dimness a different kind of darkness, a hulking canine form slowly rising from where it had been lying on the stone, turning its three monstrous heads towards the same sound that had caught his own attention. Beyond the beast, stretching up to the very roof of that vaulting cave, the great gate sat, a set of double-doors so massive that they looked to have been constructed by giants. Between those doors, growing ever larger as they continued to part, was a sliver of that unfamiliar illumination commonly known as sunlight. Already, the wheels in his horned head were turning, processing every minute detail of his situation, squeezing every last drop of meaning out of them that there was to be had. Just as his mind readied itself for whatever might be coming next, so too did his body prepare, for what it was worth. While he still possessed centuries worth of wits and cunning, weapons which had dulled only slightly during the course of his isolation, the same could not be said of his more corporeal assets. Down below his chest, two bony hands tipped with long, pointed nails were clasped meditatively. Those hands slowly parted, flexing, summoning what little strength they still had in them. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, he found himself reflecting on the condition of those feeble fingers which trembled ever-so-slightly when left to support themselves. Those hands had once been strong enough to move mountains, powerful enough to rip the land itself in twain, but now? He doubted they would have had the strength to overpower a child. Those withered hands, attached to an equally withered pair of arms, slowly made their way to his sides, where they patiently awaited their next orders. At the same time, his four other limbs prepared themselves, those equine legs flexing as they worked to lift his significant weight up off of the cold, hard floor where he lay. With a grunt of exertion, he managed to force his feeble legs to obey him, the limbs unbending as they extended, slowly pushing him upwards into a standing position. Now up on his hooves, he straightened his back, squared his shoulders, and set his gaze firmly on the scene unfolding before him. The great hound Cerberus, possessing neither his patience nor his cool, calculating demeanor, had already sprung into action, quickly jumping to its feet to confront whatever unknown entity had dared to intrude upon its domain. Its tail was erect, its hackles were raised, and although he could not see them from where he stood, he was certain that all three of its faces were contorted in sneers of aggression. He only grew more certain of this speculation when the steady, grinding sound of the gate was joined by the thunderous peal of three sets of barks, a cacophonous assault that almost made him wince as those aggressive vocalizations bounced off of the cavern walls and into his ears from every conceivable angle. The gate continued to open, however, whoever was responsible evidently not backing down from the challenge issued by that place's guardian, either out of confidence or out of ignorance of what they were getting themselves into. The sliver of bright white light slowly expanded, illuminating the cavern with an abnormal intensity. He was forced to squint his eyes to look upon it, eyes so used to the gloom that the rapid change would have blinded them otherwise. Still, he did not look away, merely waiting and watching as the doors opened, eventually coming to a stop as they reached their full open positions. While the grinding of the doors ceased, the howling of Cerberus only intensified as the great beast rushed forward to confront the one who had opened them. He saw its great bulk move across the cavern floor, saw it reach the doors in seconds, then bring itself to a sharp stop right at the threshold. Despite the intense light impairing his vision, he was able to see the beast lower its heads to the ground, obscuring whatever might have been standing before it. He listened intently as the howling turned to a low, steady growl that made the stones of the cavern rumble as it echoed throughout it. He waited, fully expecting to hear the fierce howling return, accompanied by the distinctive sounds of three sets of razor-sharp teeth sinking into flesh and bone, and yet...those sounds never came. Instead, through the rumbling of Cerberus, he could almost have sworn that he heard another sound: the sound of voices. He did not have long to ponder this, however, as Cerberus's vocalizations suddenly ceased altogether. A moment later, he saw the beast's tail, which had been standing as still as stone, begin to move back and forth, wagging excitedly. With Cerberus now relatively silent, he had little difficulty detecting that noise that he was now certain was a voice, although it was still too faint to glean any additional information. He heard the voice, and then he heard an even stranger sound, a sound that he had thought he would never hear, even if he had stayed locked in that place for another thousand years. He heard Cerberus bark once again, but bark in a distinctly, undeniably, unnervingly happy fashion. Quickly recovering from witnessing such a bizarre occurrence, he watched as Cerberus slowly lowered its tremendous hindquarters down towards the cavern floor, sitting down upon it, its weighty tail still wagging to and fro. A moment later, he saw it lean forward, lowering its heads towards the ground. His mind once again filled with images of ripping and tearing as he listened to the sounds of biting, gnawing, and loud, messy slurping. When he saw the beast rise from where it sat, slowly turning itself around again, he assumed that whatever or whoever had so recklessly breached the gate had now met the consequences of their foolhardy actions. His expectations proved incorrect, however, as he saw, when Cerberus's fearsome faces had been turned in his general direction, three large, perfectly white, perfectly clean bones clutched in its three jaws, rather than the more gruesome scene he had been picturing. He watched as Cerberus slowly padded off to the side of the cavern, each one of its heads busy gnawing on the bone it held between its teeth. It made its way to its favorite resting spot, a patch of stone that had been worn smooth by centuries of contact, then promptly lied down upon it, lazily stretching out as it feasted on its treats. Puzzled, but not staggered, he turned his attention back to the gate, which was still proving difficult for his eyes to look upon. Even as his eyes adjusted to the intense light streaming through, he still could not make out anything but white beyond the threshold of his prison. He should have been able to at least see the first stones and rocks of the wasteland he knew to lie beyond it. Had his time in that wretched place finally ruined his eyes? What other reason could there have been for the outside world to appear as white as... Snow. The explanation was so simple that he was almost ashamed of himself for not coming to it immediately. The reason why the world beyond appeared so white, almost blindingly so, was because it was. The rocky ground beyond the gate was covered in a blanket of what must have been pure white snow, which extended over every inch of the limited area he was capable of seeing. Even as he lifted his gaze, following the snowy ground up to the distant horizon and then beyond it, he still saw nothing but white, a sky of thick, white clouds obscuring every bit of blue that might have been seen. While the monochrome nature of the environment might have made it difficult to gaze upon it directly, it also made it that much easier to pick out the dark forms silhouetted against the white. There were two of them there, standing at the threshold, two creatures from a world of light that had wandered into a world of darkness. He knew they lived, for he could see them moving slightly as they stood, looking around themselves and at each other. He knew they were no dumb beasts, for he could hear the unintelligible voices that he was now absolutely certain were coming from them. Furthermore, he knew, by virtue of their distinctive equine forms, exactly what sort of creatures they were. Ponies. A hatred that had simmered in the depths of his coal-black heart for a millennium suddenly flared up at the sight of those pathetic creatures. So powerful was that hatred, so thoroughly did it permeate every fiber of his being, that it would have driven any lesser creature into raving madness in mere moments. As it was, he was not any such creature, and so the only outward signs that he even recognized the unexpected appearance of the two little ponies were a tightly clenched jaw and a pair of balled fists, the sharp nails of which dug painfully into his palms. He watched the ponies as they stood at the threshold, watched them as they turned towards one another, watched them as they spoke to each other, then watched them glance over in his direction. They were watching him, no doubt assessing the situation just as he was. He doubted that they would be able to get a good read on him, however; even his sharp eyes could not tell him much. By the size of their shadowy forms, he could tell that they were fully grown, or at least as fully grown as was normal for that race of diminutive equines. Their voices were faint, and distorted by the echo of the cavern, but he could tell that they were female, and likely young females at that. His ears strained to parse their words, and yet the most he could get were mere speech patterns. One of the ponies spoke slowly, deliberately, authoritatively even. The leader of the two. The other pony, however, spoke quickly and exuberantly, her words falling upon themselves as they echoed inwards towards him. And the follower. His assessments were only further supported as he studied their body language. The leader stood tall and straight, an obviously unrelaxed posture. If she were relaxed in a place in such as this, she would be a fool. Although...she is already a fool for coming here in the first place. And as for the other... Did she just...hop? Hop in place like an excited child? An even greater fool, I see. The lead fool continued to speak to her companion, glancing back and forth between her and him. From the rising volume and speed of her voice, he would have thought that she was arguing with her, and yet the confrontational tone did not seem to be returned by the follower, who seemed to care little for the other's words. A one-sided argument. How will the leader choose to end it? The two ponies spoke for a few moments more, then all of a sudden, the follower looked at the other and said something in a much more serious tone. They were silent for a moment, and then the leader lowered her head, giving a quiet reply. She gave up. A weak leader. For all his mental calculations, he could not hope to comprehend what happened next. The leader sat down upon the ground, raised a hoof, then drew a sign across her chest. Immediately afterwards, she held her forelimbs to either side of her and moved them up and down, flapping them like wings. Finally, she pressed one of her hooves against her face, before returning to her previous standing position. Before he could produce an explanation for the strange ritual he had just witnessed, he saw the follower turn, cross through the great gate, and make her way into the cavern, a noticeable bounce to her steps. The leader moved quickly to catch up with her, although her steps were markedly more controlled, precise, and measured. As they left behind the brightly lit world beyond the gate, moving into the gloom of Tartatus proper, his eyes were finally able to pick out the details of their appearances. The form of the excitable pony, the one currently bounding towards him as carefree as if she were skipping through a field of flowers, lightened dramatically, her coat revealed to be a disgustingly bright shade of pink. It hurt his eyes no less to look upon the thick mess of pink curls that sat atop her head and covered her tail. Upon her face, to his surprise, he saw a pair of big, bright eyes and, of all things, a wide smile. A fool indeed. And yet... Something about the pony seemed significant, but he could not immediately identify what it was. It could not have been her garish appearance; he had seen many others of her kind who looked equally ridiculous. Her unperturbed demeanor was certainly notable, yet he felt that particular detail was not the source of his confusion. The feeling was a bothersome one, one which only grew more aggravating as the seconds ticked by. Putting the pony out of his mind for a moment, he turned his gaze towards the one walking close behind her. Thankfully, this pony was easier on his eyes, the hairs upon her body being of cooler colors: a soft lavender coat, and a mane and tail of dark blue. Another thing setting this pony apart from her companion was the grave expression on her face, her lips set in a hard line and her eyes glued to the spot where he stood. She is concerned...fearful...as she should be. His eyes wandered up to the long horn that poked its way through her neatly cut bangs. A unicorn...the learned of their kind. It is possible that she knows what this place truly is. It is possible that she even knows who I truly am. The corners of his cracked lips lifted slightly, his devious mind already deciding how best to take advantage of the little pony's informed fear. I wonder if she... His train of malicious thought ground to a halt and his sly smile vanished as his eyes drifted lower, following the pony's body down to her barrel...and to the two birdlike wings neatly folded against her flanks. The realization struck him like a bolt of lighting, and just like lightning, it immediately and instantaneously set his body ablaze. If it had stoked his centuries-old malice to gaze upon a couple of unknown ponies, then to look upon that familiar form, that familiar face that haunted him every night in his dreams and tormented him every day in his waking hours made his hatred burn as brightly as the sun. For the briefest of moments, even he lost control. Gazing upon the face of his all-consuming hatred, even he could not stop himself from lurching forward, grasping the bars of his cage so tightly his knuckles turned white, and letting out a low, bestial growl. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived. When it did, his hands returned to his side, his lips relaxed, but his eyes remained locked on the ponies still making their way towards him. Why? Why has she come here? And why has she brought along...? Tearing his gaze away from the face of his most hated enemy, he looked back at her companion, whose significance he now fully comprehended. Her. She was there. She was one of them. He had paid her little mind at the time. After all, why shouldn't he have? He had consumed the essence of thousands of her kind, he had dethroned the rulers of her country, and he had even humbled the Lord of Chaos himself. What reason should he have had to fear one little pony, or even five little ponies, as had been the case. No, the princess had been the one to watch. She had been the only unknown. She had been the only potential threat...or so he had thought. He had replayed that fateful day in his mind a thousand times, analyzing every detail, examining every choice that he had made. For all that time, he had been incapable of identifying his errors, unable to pinpoint his fatal mistake, because there hadn't been one. He had won. He had triumphed. His enemies had been beaten and broken, powerless to stand against him. Through a careful combination of guile, treachery, and sheer brute force, he had gone farther than any creature had before or since. He had held in his hands a power greater than any other in the world...except one. “I may have given you my alicorn magic, but I carry within me the most powerful magic of all!” The little princess's words still rang in his head even then, still taunted him, and even after countless hours of meditation, he had yet to divine their meaning. What power had that little pony managed to unleash upon him? What foul sorcery had she indulged in in order to obtain it? He did not know, but he did know that it had taken that little pink pony, and all the rest of those weaklings that he had so ignorantly traded away like useless tokens to unlock it. They had been the key. They had possessed some strange magic amongst themselves, a magic that even a sorcerer of his unrivaled might and knowledge had been powerless to understand, let alone combat. For this reason, he watched that pink pony very carefully as she gleefully bounded her way across the cavern floor towards him. It took only a short time for the two to reach the stone bridge that spanned the great chasm that separated his little pillar of rock from the rest of the cavern. Despite this, the loud, melodious humming coming from the throat of the pink one did not make the passage of time any more bearable. It grew louder as the distance between them shrunk, allowing him to hear every disgustingly cheerful note. It almost made him nauseous to listen to, a feeling that was not helped when the little pony opened her mouth wide and announced their presence in a sickeningly saccharine voice. “Oh, Tirek!” she bellowed, her words echoing off of the cavern walls and bouncing back into his unfortunately unmuffled ears from every direction. He managed to keep himself from wincing, although he was sorely tempted to do so. The little pink earsore did not hesitate as she neared the start of the bridge, clearly intending to trot her way right across it without breaking her stride. The princess, however, seemingly did not approve of this. “Wait!” she called out, quickly extending a hoof and holding her companion back. “What is it, Twilight?” said the pink one, glancing back at the princess. The princess opened her mouth as if to speak, but paused before doing so, quickly turning her gaze towards his cage, towards he himself, looking straight into his big, black eyes. He met her gaze, staring into her eyes just as intently. It was those eyes that confirmed his earlier assessment of the little pony. Despite what her heroically stoic visage would have him believe, despite the incredible power she no doubt wielded, and despite the impassable barrier between them, he saw, deep within those eyes, the unmistakable tremor of fear...fear of him. He grinned. The princess gulped, then looked away. She pulled her companion around to face her, then leaned in close, whispering to her. Even his sharp ears were incapable of picking out her words, but he did not need to hear them to recognize them as words of warning. The pink one, however, seemed no less nonchalant for hearing them, her silly smile not faltering even once. She spoke back to the princess in a similarly quiet tone, although it was clear that she only did so to humor her. A quick exchange later, the pink one turned away from the princess, resuming her journey towards his cage. She happily stepped onto the narrow stone walkway, proceeding across it unperturbed by the sheer drop to either side of her. She is either braver...or more foolish than I gave her credit for. He watched her for a moment, then looked back to the princess, who...stood still. She stood there, down at the other end of the bridge, looking back at him. Her statuesque form hardly moved; her unflinching gaze never wavered, never moved away from him. If he had not been who he was, he might have been intimidated by her presence, but as it was, he was merely rationally cautious of the situation. He knew what they were capable of, those princesses, those alicorns who boasted power unmatched by any creatures in their domain, and most creatures beyond it. He knew what sort of power she no doubt held within that little horn of hers. He knew she could probably break the unbreakable bars of his cage as easily as if they were dry twigs, and he could imagine full well what effect that same strength might have if it were applied to his bones. He knew it, she knew it, and most importantly, she knew that he knew it. What's more, she knew that he would know what would happen should her little pink companion not make her way back across the bridge in the same state as she was in now. Touche, princess. At the same time, she clearly recognized the potential threat he posed, even beaten, withered, and caged as he was. While it was true that he possessed only a puny fraction of the incredible power he had once wielded, he also possessed the means to potentially remedy that undesirable situation, an ancient, forbidden technique used to claim another's magic for one's own. Unfortunately for him, even such a technique required at least a small amount of magical power to use; one cannot get something for nothing, after all. The last time he had passed beyond the gate of Tartarus, it had taken him many moons to gather enough strength to launch his assault on those accursed ponies, countless days and nights of slinking through forests and caves, hiding away in whatever dark corners he could find, subsisting on puny, pathetic creatures with barely a scrap of magic in them. Eventually, when he had grown strong enough, he had been able to go after the unicorns, those little ponies with the convenient magical conductors on their foreheads. After that, things had gone much quicker. Before long, even those pesky pegasi and the pathetic Earth ponies had been within his grasp, despite the relative difficulty of wringing the magic from their bodies. An alicorn, however, was an entirely different beast altogether. If a unicorn was a cheery little candle flickering in the breeze, then an alicorn was a bright, blazing bonfire whose warmth could be felt even from far away. He had never understood how those little princesses could have so much raw power flowing through their veins, but whatever the reason, he knew that they practically radiated magical energy. He had felt that power long ago, back when he had first set hoof in their accursed country, and he could feel it then, locked in his little cage beneath the ground. Even with the wide chasm between them, he could detect that distinctive aura emanating from the little purple princess, if only just. If only she were a little bit closer, then even he, powerless as he was, might have been able to skim a little off the top. But she won't come closer. She knows. Again, he was forced to acknowledge the skill of his opponent in their little game, a game which was currently at an impasse. Just as he could not move from his spot, so too could she not move, either to advance, or to retreat. And so, the two stayed like that, watching each other like hawks, a contest of wills that he had no doubt that he would eventually win. Of course, he had no way of knowing just what sort of test that unbending will of his was about to be put through.