There was nothing left. The world was silent
There was not a cry of anger, or pain, or delight. Not the soft sound of breath. No waves crashed on shores, for the oceans have dried up. Not even plants were left alive.
The Hour of Twilight had come.
Dragonblight, once a holy place for dragons, where they came to die, was swollen with echoes of the past, long since forgotten. At the foot of Wyrmrest Temple lay the bodies of the mighty Aspects: Alexstrasza, Ysera and Kalecgos. There was no Nozdormu, not anymore - only Murozond remained, the sole living being left on Azeroth.
And at the spire of Wyrmrest Temple...
A single, massive body. It was illuminated by the dim, somber light of the twilight skies of Northrend, a limp and too-still thing.
Deathwing.
This... was the End Time.
Matthias woke up, shaking. Even though it hasn't been the first time he had that vision - courtesy of Ner'zhul - during the last few weeks, he still found it terrifying.
It has been close to two months since he was brought back to life in a body of a pony in Equestria. Two months... and he still didn't knew what it was that he was suppose to do here.
Annoyed, he got up from the bed and made his way into the main room of library, where he saw Spike, busy with cleaning.
"Good morning." he greeted the baby dragon.
"More like 'good afternoon'." replied Spike, amused that for once it wasn't he who overslept.
"Guess that will teach me to never again compete with Applejack." chuckled Matthias.
Since that day that he helped her on Sweet Apple Acers in return for paying for him at that restaurant, he continued to come and help every few days, finding apple bucking as a good way for strengthening his muscles, as well as quite relaxing. Yesterday, for some reason, he and Applejack gotten into a friendly argument about who could gather more apples within a day. They made a bet, with the loser having to do anything the winner said for the next day, got their friends to be judges, and spend the rest of the day bucking as many trees as they could. While Matt was overall stronger physically, Applejack had stronger hind legs, and had a lifetime of experience with apple bucking, so he had to work at double the pace to keep up. In the end, it turned out that Matthias managed to gather more apples, but Applejack bucked more trees, so they decided to call it a draw.
However, the competition left Matt all sore, and because of that he slept so long.
"You could have just healed yourself with Light." noticed Spike.
"I could have." admitted Matt.
Spike frowned. No doubt by now he knew that unless it was something important, Matthias wouldn't ask the Light to heal him.
"Where's Twilight?" asked Matt, wondering why the lavender unicorn wasn't here.
"Oh, she went on a picnic with the rest of the gang. She said she would have woke you up to ask if you wanted to come, but she knew you would probably went to meditate by that 'pondering place' of yours."
"Ahh, how well she knows me." sighed Matthias.
He tried to meditate as often as he could, which to his annoyance not only hasn't brought any results, but was also very hard. Only the day after the Cataclysm, he was interrupted by the Cutie Mark Crusaders again, attacking him with questions. While he didn't say that he was from another world, he did answered most of those questions truthfully. He told them about the Light, which they were sceptical until he did the same as with Twilight and the rest, about the Knights of the Silver Hand, about Muradin Bronzebeard, who taught him how to fight, and Uther the Lightbringer, who tutored him in the ways of the paladins. To his amusement, the three fillies said that the names of those two were more 'pony like' than his.
After that, he hoped he would have some peace and quiet the next day. He was wrong. The fillies tried to talk with him as often as they could through the first month of his stay in Ponyville, and while Matthias couldn't find within himself to be truly angry at them, he still regreted the time he could have spend on finding about why he was here. Despite that, he found some amusement in that, because the glares that Rainbow shot him few times when she was flying over as he talked with Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, as well as Twilight tales about a few things that happened around Ponyville before he came here, made him realise that the reason Dash still disliked him, albeit not as much as at the beginning, was that she was jealous, or rather irritated, that in such short time he managed to gain so much admiration from those three, that was usually reserved for her.
There were other 'distractions', of course - after all, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had to attend the school, so he had mornings and noons free of them. Soon after his powers were a well known fact around Ponyville, he was approached by the doctor who treated him after his first encounter with timberwolfs, and asked if he could help in the hospital. Matthias obviously agreed, cursing at himself for not thinking about it earlier, and soon, the feather flu epidemic was nothing more than a memory. Matt would have stayed all the time there after that, but the hospital's staff told him, laughing, that it would made them lose their jobs. They said that they would only called him if there was a case that they couldn't deal with themselves. Matthias, painfully aware that there are diseases that even Light can't heal, hoped that they would never have to resort to that. He also instructed the hospital's staff to not call him in cases such as broken bones, unless it was necessary.
"Broken bone that mends naturally is stronger than the one magically healed." he told them. "And the pony that endures pain of his or her injuries grows stronger, as well. That was why it was forbidden by my order to heal ourselves, unless one was in the middle of the battle and such."
He tried to help Twilight within the library, despite not being nearly as organised. He also told her some of Azeroth's history, which she had great interest in. He went to Fluttershy once to deliver her a book she asked from Twilight and helped her feed her animals, and that finally made the shy pegasus more open towards him, and despite being acquainted with her pet rabbit Angel, he found the whole day fun. After that, Fluttershy asked him from time to time about animals from his world. Similarly, he talked about clothes on Azeroth with Rarity whenever she asked him about it, this time more easily, since he didn't have to adapt them to ponies bodies. And of course, he helped at Applejack's farm. Pinkie Pie didn't seemed to need his help with whatever it was that she does, but he still made a point to talk to her few times at Sugarcube Corner. The hardest one to get to know and befriend was Rainbow Dash, of course, but eventually, about a month after Matt has offered to teach her some of his fighting moves she agreed, and they had sparring fights every few days.
One time she asked him why he was trying to be friendly with everypony.
"Because I'm afraid." he replied, earning a confused stare form the cyan mare. "Afraid that I might become evil once again. But Twilight told that if I have friends by might side, they will stop me before I fall down this path. In other words:" Matt said, grinning,"I trust you and the rest to smack me at the back of my head if I go on a rampage around Ponyville."
Rainbow chuckled at that, and since then she became friendlier.
Despite all that, however, when about a month ago they all went to Canterlot to deliver Cakes cake for National Dessert Competition, he opted to stay and meditate. While when he heard what ridiculous adventure had happened to them on that train, he was glad of his choice, he didn't get much time to do as he planned. Soon after everypony left, the Cakes realised that they had some large catering order to complete, and needed a foalsitter for their toddlers, Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. Not having anypony else to ask, they turned to Matthias, who agreed. The foals were quite handful, but he didn't have any bigger problems, aside from changing their diapers.
Matt shook his head. At the rate he was going about, he might have as well went to that picnic. But he knew this was more important.
"I better go, then." he said to Spike, turning towards the door.
"Don't you want anything to eat?"
"No, thanks, I can eat when I return." Matt replied, leaving the library.
As he went through Ponyville, saying his greeting to few ponies that passed him, he couldn't help but wonder how were things on Azeroth going. He knew about the most important events thanks to Bolvar - the destruction the Cataclysm has wrought, the rejoining of Gilneas, or rather, the survivors from Gilneas, to the Alliance, the introduction of Bilgewater Cartel to the Horde and the mess they made out of Azshara, the continued war between the two factions, dispite their world crumbling around them, the assault on the World Tree, the battles across the sunken ruins of Vashj'ir, and the events that traspired around the Dragonblight. As he remembered Chromatus, the dreaded chromatic dragon with five heads, he felt as if the air around him grew colder.
He cursed at his inability to help Azeroth. Even Bolvar couldn't do anything, since he wanted to keep the information that the Lich King hasn't been destroyed, like everyone thought, a secret. Matt wished there was something he could to to help, if not his world, then at least his friends, like Varian, Muradin... or Jaina.
Matt could help but think how much she would love Equestria. Here everything was peaceful, everypony was kind, there were tons of book around and plenty of magic for her to study. He tried to imagine how would she look like if she was transformed into a pony...
... and in his head, she looked exactly like Twilight.
That was another thing that worried him, as much as his inability to find out why he was here and to help anyone on Azeroth. Twilight reminded him so much of Jaina, that he soon realised that he started to have the same feelings he had for the daughter of Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore. He was dismayed at himself for that. Those feelings were nothing more than an echo of his love for Jaina. Twilight, no matter how much she was alike her, was Twilight. If he tried to get into that kind of relationship with her because of that, it would be unfair for her.
Not that he would even try.
As Matt reached his pondering place, he looked around. The ponies have long since learned that he desired to be undisturbed when he was meditating, and none of those he saw in the distance paid him any attention. Satisfied, he sat down, when Canterlot caught his eye.
"Is it just me, or does it look... different?" he asked himself, gazing at the far away city. There was something that seemed familiar to him about this, but...
Brushing this weird feeling off, he started meditating.
He sat there for a few hours - at least that was what he thought, time didn't matter to him when he stayed connected to the Light for so long - when he noticed that somepony was approaching him.
Matt opened one eye and saw Twilight trotting over to where he sat, not looking at him. She sat next to him, her eyes on the water.
"What happened?" asked Matthias.
Twilight shook and finally looked at him.
"How do you know that something had happened?" she asked him. "Did you use some Light trick to read my mind?"
"You don't need to be the paladin of the Holy Light to know when your friend is unhappy about something." Matt replied, and he meant it. Twilight was still his friend, despite those feelings he started to have for her because of her alikeness of Jaina. "And affecting minds of others is more priests speciality than paladins, anyway."
"What about that time when you calmed me?"
"I affected your heart, not your mind. What's wrong?" he asked, growing concerned.
Twilight sighed and looked away.
"My brother is getting married."