//------------------------------// // Clutching to Stars, Galloping to Days' End // Story: Since Before the Stars Swirled // by The Real Darkness //------------------------------// Pulsar heard the voice and looked to the young foals in front of him, future magic researchers of themselves or mages to protect Equestria with him, "listen fillies and colts, an emergency requires my attention so this tutoring session is cut a bit short. You are free to teleport home." The eight students were then gone. "Twilight! What's wrong?!" She made her way to his central desk as he was cleaning away the materials he laid out and filing them to be used another time. "It's Flurry Heart! She's disappeared from the Crystal Empire and it's being covered in snow!" Pulsar's horn lit a light blue, an irregular color. "WHAT?!" A shout came from the alchemy lab and Sunset slammed the wood door open, galloping to the other two alicorns, "how does a ruler just...just...disappear?!" A windigo quickly flew in from the ceiling, staring at Pulsar and opening its mouth. Pulsar's horn lit again and their winter breath magic met each other. "Thauma, I don't like to bother you as I know you prefer teaching the herd, but I desperately need your assistance." "Is it the Crystal Empire? The herd is already working to slow the snow's advance." "Thank you, windigo!" Twilight cried. It nodded to her, "call me Thauma." "I'm going to start evacuating them, please look for her." "I'll come with you, Twilight," Sunset teleported with the ruler of Equestria and Pulsar Splash could hear the clock ticking in his library. Pulsar inhaled, "the second collapse of the Crystal Empire. Curse your clairvoyance." You will understand in time. My plan was interrupted, but we will begin anew with your help. "I. Fucking. Hope so." He teleported to the jewel of the Frozen North and looked up to see Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle flying in circle's, teleporting pony after pony out. He looked to the palace and knew the nature of Flurry Heart. "I'm coming for you...couldn't just be normal, huh?" His horn lit a bright grey and a beam shot forth from it, drilling into the crystal below where the heart used to be. Eventually it gave way to the cavern below and he hopped down, flapping his wings just before landing. "P-pul...Pulsar Splash?" "Yeah, that's me. The oldest idiot in Equestria." "What...what's going on out there?" Flurry Heart lay on the cavern floor just in front of the special crystal the original heart was cut from and she held a dulling heart in her hooves. "My friends, the windigos, they're holding back the eternal winter while Twilight and Sunset teleport everypony to safety." "Tha...that's-." "Flurry Heart, you were always the most stubborn of all of us, but you did love everypony and everything. Even loved my pompous flanks. I know this is your choice to be here while you die, but...before you go. May I ask why here?" "The EverMore asked me to." "I...I see," he huffed, "I've been very fed up with the EverMore lately. I know this is all for a reason, but your body is going to be buried in stone," he modified the stone around her, sealing her in and putting the crystal heart into it along with a headstone, a slot allowing him to see her face, "you...you take care of your mom, dad, aunties...and you tell those assholes Starswirl and Dingy Coat to send me some more seeds." "Will do. Take good care of aunt Twily and your Sunset." And she was gone. Pulsar sealed the stone coffin before flapping hard and watching snow flood in shortly after him. He teleported himself back to the Canterlot castle, where Twilight and Sunset awaited him. "We can't let this disaster go on!" "Why not? Plenty of abandoned homes need owners in Canterlot...and Ponyville." "Pulsar!" "What...what are you saying?" "Sorry, just...the cosmos has me in a rage today." Sunset sighed and hugged him tight, "we're gonna be fine, Equestria is gonna be fine." "Twilight...she's...she's gone. She was a natural born alicorn and she was incredibly powerful but that meant...not as long a life as the other alicorns." Twilight went quiet. Pulsar began walking to the door, "no...no funeral?" "She left a note," Pulsar levitated a paper he took from her hooves to her, "a duplicate is still with her." Pulsar was watching the nation he loved crash down and it was making him incredibly rageful. "Pulsar!" Sunset called. "I...I need to clear my head. We'll hold a vigil for Flurry Heart soon, Twilight." He teleported himself to the now crumbling again castle of the twin sisters, looking about, signs of newly moved in creatures everywhere. He teleported to the Tree of Harmony, seeing their graves, a little weather from time before he repaired the headstones with magic. "Everypony dies, never did I imagine this would be a burden I had to face." "Laying my own students to rest time and time again when their family was no longer on speaking terms due to lingering controversy of my classes." He trotted outside, looking to the star painted sky that Twilight put up, "I'm not teaching ponies how to be immortal or preparing them to outlast everypony they love. That's my shitty burden." "It's all a load of griffin shit." "True words, Pulsar." A dragon stood next to him, smiling. He had long since casted an immortality spell on the dragon Rupture and asked when the time was right to integrate the dragons with Equestrians, but...Equestria was locked in a slow decline just shortly before Flurry's death. Rupture was kind enough to accept. "How did..." "The dragons dwindle in number and we don't even speak to each other much. The authority of dragon lord even holds zero merit now." "I-I see." "Wanted to check out how it is here, but I've never seen so many ghost towns." "I...we're trying, but...I know there won't be any stop to this collapse." "You look like you needed to relax. You're always welcome at my home, you know that." "You're still amazing at reading ponies for a dragon. I...I have to go to a special place, just exist for a while without my responsibilities." Pulsar teleported with little word. "Never. Ever. Change, Pulsar Splash." He stood on his two feet, staring at the same old Canterlot High School and remembered all the funerals he attended here before looking at the beautiful Cosmos' Lost Children flowers still blooming around it. School was out and students were actively using the soccer field below his mark. The students nearby stared oddly at him as if he came from thin air, "still the same old CHS." He began a walk, a long walk by himself, passing by some familiar sights. The Apples' farm was still present. And then he began heading far out and after hours of mulling he came to Camp Everfree. He stood at the entrance, seeing young campers about. "Can...can I help you?" A camp representative came over, clearly a descendant of Glorioso Daisy. "N-No," he let out before walking the trail to the crystal cave and seeing a warning in front of the hole. Safety was good. "Why...you can't be here unless you're camping with us and I don't think you're on the list." "Name's Pulsar Splash...I think Timber Spruce mentioned a VIP list, go check it." He flapped his wings and went over the barrier, falling down the hole before sitting in the ruins below. It was here that he chose to think and think and prepare and prepare. "Twilight, you have...five hundred years more. Sunset, you casted that spell to join me in my immortality." He sighed, "I...still feel empty each time somepony leaves." The mage laid onto his back, spreading his wings out for comfort and stared up into the blackness between the ruins and the cave ceiling. The water drips sounded into his ears, reminding him that he was alone in a quiet, secluded place, much like his home used to be. Holding counsel times for ponies was long and rewarding, but sometimes exhausting. Every alicorn did it and now with Celestia and Luna gone, with the Crystal Empire overtaken by winter. There would be an incredible amount of ponies to visit the alicorns, seeking answers to questions they aren't even specialized in. And after Pulsar and Sunset held their marriage, they'd be the main consultants for love and romance in place of Cadence or Flurry Heart. He sighed again, "what a fucking mess." Pulsar Splash breathed the cave air in deeply, despite Dingy Coat already being gone, this was still one if his favorite places. "That alchemist," he spoke aloud, his voice carrying, "maybe...I'll make myself some mint, nettle, and cinnamin brew, get me the energy he had." "You come here often. Does my plan disturb you?" He chose not to respond, somewhat out of spite. "Your refusal to answer tells me enough. Trust in this, my child. There were reasons why all this decline is happening." "Then...why is Sunset Shimmer still here?! Is it part of your plan to take her as well?!" He shouted angrily. Silence for a moment. "There is purpose for her, though her sprint to this world delayed things, she has her place. She is a paragon." He was still angry. "So is your friend Rupture and Thauma, and your changeling friends." And he sighed, "how come I play into this so well?" "Because you are mine, all of Equestria is mine, but you..." He saw the night sky forming around in the blackness and sat up, watching as it twsited and stars moved, comets flew, suns and other giant space bodies moved around. A giant ray shot through the image that was twisting about from a giant star. "you are directly mine. You are one of my children and it makes me happy that you found another child to be your life partner." The magical anomaly stayed there, twisting about and Pulsar was in awe. No wonder he didn't know his parents, he didn't have any. "I gave way to your life. Trust in me that I will only do what is best for my creations and the paragons we are making together." He came here to get away from it all, but instead...it all came here to get to him. He had so many questions and most were useless to ask, but he chose instead to voice an opinion. "I...I won't ever understand your plans. I, Pulsar Splash, will always live doing what I enjoy." "I will never take that from you." The image disappeared.