//------------------------------// // The Day of Black Sun // Story: Far From the Tree // by Rust //------------------------------// CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE DAY OF BLACK SUN Otherwise Known as the First of Uncle Buckshot's Bedtime Stories Crab Apple stood perfectly still, slack-jawed in astonishment. The burgundy coated stallion barely felt the scorching summer sun boring into the back of his neck, such was his condition. Crab looked at his son, and then looked to the gaping hole that had formerly been a tree stump the diameter of a small minivan. He scratched his magnificent sideburns in wonder, trying to make sense of the scene before him. The shattered remains of the where the stump had been rooted in were smoking slightly, as though the fissure that was torn from the ground not ten seconds ago had simply vaporized the stump out of existence. Crab turned his gaze once again back to his son, who was standing next to the crater with a grin of pure delight on his face. He had asked to take care of the troublesome stump for his father, so that the family might have room to plant some more onions this season. Crab had expected him to dig the blasted thing up somehow, not outright yank it out of the ground with one solid heave. Buck was the oldest of his offspring, as well as the only one left. Crab had had another foal with his wife, Kanga Roo, but she had died while she was very young, passing away in the night due to some terminal illness. Buck himself had been a young colt at the time, and barely remembered her. Crab gave his son a once over, attempting to discern the secret of the young stallion's feat. Buck was big, he'd give him that, but he had yet to fill out his adult frame, only recently having a set of growth spurts that signaled the end of his adolescence. Despite eating phenomenal amounts of food, typical of ponies his age, that had seemed to fail to put any meat on his bones. Kanga often compared her son to a ravenous pack of dingos. "No matter how much food ya give 'em, they always come back ta swipe whatever vittles ya have left," she often said, drawing a distinct parallel between the two subjects. Crab shook his head in resignation. "All right, I give. How didja do it, sonny?" His lanky offspring modestly brushed a hoof over his bare chest. "Trade secret. Sorry, Pops." The elder Apple cracked a rugged grin. "Maybe this 'secret' 'o yours will finally getcha that cutie mark, eh?" Buck glanced at the bare dark teal coat of his flank, and sighed wistfully. "I hope so. I'm tired of bein' the only one in town without one, and at the age of nineteen, no less." He snorted in frustration. "I'll be older than you by the time I get it." Crab Apple laughed and brushed off the joke on his age, knowing his colt meant no harm in the jest. He might be getting on in his years, but he was still one of the fittest stallions in Stable. But now he was certainly not the strongest. "I'm proud of you, colt. It was a good thing we gotcha fitted for those leg weights, eh? Next you'll be moving mountains!" His son nodded and self consciously shuffled his back legs, letting the heavy weights clack together. A few months ago, after accidentally shattering the kitchen door with one hoof, his father had taken him to the local blacksmith, a unicorn, and fitted him with the weights. The blacksmith had cast an enchantment on them that allowed the metal to increase in density depending on the wearer's strength. In this way, no matter how powerful Buck's leg's got, he'd always have the right amount of force to dampen the motion of them, ensuring that he'd no longer be accidentally destroying his home. Apparently they didn't bother him that much, considering the gaping trench sitting on the place of Crab's future onion garden. Crab nodded his head back at the ramshackle cottage he'd built with his own two hooves. "Why don'tcha take a breather, sonny. I'll handle cartin' the stump for a while." He brushed away his colt's protests with a wave of his hoof. "You just did a job that would take me a whole day in a second. I think you've earned a little reward," he stomped one of his burgundy hooves into the ground for emphasis, sending up a small cloud of dust. "Now scoot!" Buck sighed and plodded towards the cottage. Arguing was useless when his father had his mind made up. Nothing short of a natural disaster would ever make his father budge even an inch. Ironically, that's exactly what happened next. -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- "Your papa sounds a lot like you, Uncle Buck," said Apple Bloom thoughtfully. All thoughts of sleep had been put out of the filly's head as she listened with rapt attention. Buck chuckled and ruffled her mane. "Eeyup. Reminds me of somepony else I know who's got a stubborn streak a mile wide." Apple Bloom put on a fearsome scowl, or at least tried to. "Ah hope yer not talkin' bout little ole me, now, right?" "That depends, what are you gonna do about it?" She pondered this for a moment. A mischievous gleam crept into her eyes as an idea took root. Abruptly, she exploded out out from under the covers and tackled her uncle, knocking him on his side and pinning him onto the bed. "Tickle fight!" she cried out with glee. Apple Bloom shoved her hooves into Buck's side and began tickling him furiously. He roared with laughter and attempted to get up, but was held firmly in place by his niece's merciless onslaught. "Hahaha! Hoho-hoooo! Stop it, Bloomie! Ah!" He gave a very un-stallionlike yelp as Apple Bloom dug her hooves in for the kill. "All right, all right, I give!" Apple Bloom ceased her tickling and struck a heroic pose standing atop her uncle's still giggling body. Buck reared up and flung her off him. She landed neatly back under the covers, the fierce fire of victory shining in her face. "You win this round," Buck muttered darkly. "Ah win every round." He chuckled, still trying to catch his breath after his fit of laughing. "See? Stubborn. Now... Where was I?" -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- Buck was sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of water in his hoof. His mother sat across the kitchen table from him repairing a worn out blanket, her root-beer eyes intently focused on restitching the intricate designs with a needle she held with her magic. Kanga Roo was a compact, yet slim, tan unicorn mare with a brown mane knotted into cornrows. Her body was laced with peculiar golden stripes, a trait that the aboriginal pony tribes who lived deep in the interior outback of Austailia seemed to share. She'd met her husband while out foraging one day. He was a hopelessly lost, windswept wreck from the coast, covered in the reddish dust that was common around the outback. She could tell he hadn't drank or eaten for days, at least. After taking back to her tribe's camp, they'd nursed him back to health over the course of a few weeks. In return, Crab had shown the tribe how to farm the harsh, arid soil of their territory. He'd left the camp with Kanga, whom he had fallen in love with during his stay. The rest was history. Kanga lifted her head up from the blanket abruptly, the golden glow of her magic fading as she lost concentration. "Did you feel that, Bucky?" She asked. Buck shook his head. His mother had truly grown up as one with the land, and as a result carried a unique connection to it. She could sense a change in the wind before it happened, and accurately predict the amount of rain that would fall during any given storm. The fact that she was noticing something that he wasn't was a common occurrence. "What's up, Mum?" She hopped off her chair and stood up, bending her knees slightly. Kanga frowned. "Somethin's not right with the earth. It feels..." she shuffled around to look Buck in the eye. "Angry." Buck raised an eyebrow worriedly. As cryptic as she could be, his mum was almost always right about this sort of thing. "What's got it ticked off?" "I'm not sure. There might be..." She trailed off. Her eyes zeroed in on the glass of water her son held in his hoof. "Buck. Put the glass on the table." He complied and inspected the glass carefully. Nothing seemed wrong with it, apart from a small bit of soapscum lining the bottom of the outside. But... wait a moment. Was the water inside trembling? "is it just me, or does the water look like it's-" he started. "-It is," Kanga finished for him. The water in the glass began to shudder violently. A deep, baritone vibration, just bordering on the edge of hearing, echoed in both ponies' ears. The shaking of the water suddenly spread to the glass, and the the table began to buzz as well. The entire kitchen began to tremble a bit. Dishes stacked up in the sink wobbled precariously. A vase containing a few flowers shattered as it fell off a shelf. Then, as quickly as it began, the movement stopped. The pair let out a breath as one. Neither realized they'd been holding the air in. "Was that an earthquake?" Buck mused. "I don't think so." Kanga shook her head slowly. "Or if it was, it was no ordinary-" She was cut off as Crab Apple burst through the back door, his eyes wide with fear. "Mt. Stable's gonna blow." That was all he said, yet the effect was instantaneous. Both mother and son rushed to the kitchen window and looked outside. There, directly behind their backyard, stood the impressive monolith that towered several thousand feet above the surrounding countryside. A staggering amount of smoke was pouring out from the just behind the peak. Buck looked at the unfolding calamity and closed his heavy-lidded eyes. "Well, this bites." That statement pretty much summed up the general feeling in the room. The floor beneath the three suddenly gave a mighty lurch, and all but Kanga remained standing. The rumbling in the ground resumed in full force, and several dishes skid out of kitchen cabinets, shattering where they fell. Buck's leg weights cracked the floorboards where he slammed down. Kanga bent down and hauled her husband to his hooves by the scuff of his mane. Crab shot his wife a look of thanks before speaking up again. "We nedd to hunker down somewhere safe," he paused and frantically looked around. "Wait! The basement! It's perfect!" He turned to his wife and colt. "Buck, I need you to round up the others and gather them there. Kanga, I need your help clearin' some space for everypony. It's tight quarters down there." Both ponies nodded in agreement. Kanga trotted out of the room towards the entrance to the basement, Crab close on her hooves. Before he exited the room, he turned back to Buck. "Be careful," He said in a pained voice. "I already lost one foal, and I'm not gonna lose another. Come back in one piece, ya hear?" "I can't say that, but I'll promise ya that the rest make it." Crab nodded. That was about as good as a promise as he'd get. Buck had a wise habit of only making promises he could keep. "Good." He let out a long shuddering breath, and left the kitchen. Buck raced out the back door. Stable Mountain was visibly shaking now, the great plumes of smog and smoke spewing from the peak laced with the red glow of fire. Buck gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. The ground sent a strange tingly sensation up his hooves as his whole body shook with the eruption. He glared up at the mountain. "WHO THE CLOP NAMED YOU 'STABLE', EH? STABLE MY FAT FLANK!" He roared. The mountain groaned in reply, and a massive explosion sounded as the peak suddenly blew apart. Huge chunks of debris flew as far as twenty miles away. A particular slab of mountainside blotted out the sun before thundering downwards, carving out an enormous crater in the cabbage field, not thirty feet from where Buck was standing. The lanky stallion flew backward as the shock wave from the impact sent a ripple of energy outward. He landed onto the packed dirt with a thud . Buck let out a groan as he picked himself up, his head ringing. The jolt had addled his head; everything was spinning around now. "Well played, mountain," he slurred. The stallion shook his great head from side to side rapidly, clearing out the disorganized mess that had been his thought process. Buck took off due south-east, following a well worn track that took him around the main crop fields to another cottage located on the far end of the farm. The Apples used this as a sort of a guest house for the few times they had company, and it doubly served as a space for the hired help and the Apple's kin. There were a few ponies from town that lived here full time, in addition to the two or three distant cousins that called the place home as well. Crashing through the front door, he could see how the eruption was affecting other places. A thin layer of dust coated everything, having been shaken down by the constant vibration. Several windows were spider-webbed with minute cracks. Others had been shattered completely. Buck took a deep breath and roared out into the cottage, "Everypony get to the main house's basement on the double!" A door opening at the end of the entrance hallway, followed by the sudden motion of several ponies told him that they'd heard his message. He wheeled around and stood outside the guest house, occasionally fighting to keep his balance due to the irregular lurches of the ground. A rock whipped by his head, smashing into the dirt with a terrific whump, no doubt launched from the thundering monster looming above. Another quick glance at the mountain told him that time was running out. Large sections of the mountain side had collapsed, and the sheer energy from the great plumes of fire leaking out from the gaps in the slope almost hurt his eyes, despite the distance. Squinting to avoid their glare, he glanced upwards at the billowing stack of smog that had risen several thousand feet by this time. He noticed two faint pinpricks of motion, circling the column. They rapidly approached the town, rocketing downwards at an incredible speed. Buck could make them out; one was a whitish thing with some kind of colorful streaking around it. The other was a midnight blue, accompanied by a strange black coloration. The two shapes whizzed overhead, and Buck caught sight of elegant wings extended in flight. Both objects headed off towards the town, soon lost to view. A voice at his side broke his concentration. "Were those Pegasi?" Buck turned his head to see the others standing behind him, gazes raised to the direction of town. Clearly they'd seen the anomaly too. He resolved to ponder the sighting at a more appropriate time, one that did not involve a possible death by falling debris and fire. "I dunno, mates, but we've gotta go. Pops and Mum are already in the basement. Come on, then!" Buck pointed towards the main cottage. "Move it!" he barked. The group set off towards the house at a gallop, occasionally darting out of the way of a piece of smaller debris coming down from the eruption. Buck took up the rearguard position, carefully following the group to make sure there were no stragglers. Another large section of mountainside slammed into the earth to his right, knocking everyone off their hooves. A shrill yelp from up ahead told that somepony was injured. Buck forced himself back to his hooves and coughed out some dust thrown up by the collision. His eyes stung, he could barely see anything now. He caught up with the group to find them gathered around one of the hired help, who was lying on the ground with one leg awkwardly extended. It was clearly broken. One of the group turned to him, but Buck couldn't see who because of the veil of dust in the air. "We need to get her in! Can you carry her?" the voice said. "Aye," without hesitation, he bent down and scooped up the crippled mare onto his back. The others voiced their thanks and carried onwards, heads bent down low to the ground to see where they were going. They followed the dirt path without any other incidents and arrived at the house more or less in one piece. Once through the back door, they stormed through the hallways towards the basement. Buck couldn't help but notice that there were several hairline cracks appearing on the walls. The group burst down into the cellar, which had been hurriedly cleared out by Crab and Kanga. The cellar had a surprisingly high ceiling, allowing most of the barrels and out-of-season farm equipment to be easily piled in one corner of the room. A few candles had been lit at various points in the room. The lights constantly shivered from the ever present rumbling. Buck gently set the crippled mare on the ground. She winced as she touched the stone floor of the basement, but did not cry out. Buck realized this must be one of the hired help from the village. He realized he did not even know her name. "Scuze me, ma'am. Are you gonna be all right?" he asked her softly. The mare sneezed some dust out of her nose. "Yes. Thank you. I would have been left behind if you weren't there." Buck scratched the back of his neck bashfully. "Shucks, I'm sure somepony else would have carried you." "It doesn't matter. You're a hero in my eyes." "Just doin' the right thing, ma'am." Buck tried not to blush under the praise. Ordinary acts of kindness did not qualify for that kind of status. Anypony else would have done the same thing if they had been in his hooves. Once everypony had assembled, Crab and Kanga gave roll call. After all had been accounted for, water and rations were passed out to the group. They ate silently, brooding in the dim light of the cellar as the steady rumbling gradually became worse. Buck wasn't sure how much time passed in this manner, as nopony had brought any kind of timekeeping device down with them. BOOOOM! The dark tranquility of the basement was suddenly interrupted when a truly colossal impact shook the house literally to its foundations. The cellar cracked and split into several chunks, dirt pouring in from gaps in the walls. The ceiling opened up in several places, and debris from the floors above poured down into the basement like a title wave. Eventually, the ebb stopped, but only after a significant amount of the basement was covered. Buck groaned as he once again picked himself off the floor for what seemed the thousandth time that day. He coughed several times and wiped his hooves over his eyes to clear some of the dust the impact had stirred up. He glanced up at the ceiling and found it rent in several places; in fact, he could see faint, smoky daylight streaming in through some of the gaps. It seemed to sag inwards, as if there were some great weight pressing down from where the house stood above. Buck had serious doubts that the house was even standing above-ground. He guessed that another falling rock had probably scored a direct hit on the house. "Sonny!" a weak, muffled voice called from the far corner of the room, where most of the debris had come down. Buck waded through the debris like an icebreaker, occasionally stopping to pull a half buried pony out of the wreckage. "Da?! 'Sat you?" A sarcastic reply came from under the largest section of the collapse, although it was faint and laced with pain. "No, ya bloomin' dinkhead, it's the princess! Who do ya think it is?" Buck tried to get through the pile, but more debris spilled down to fill the gaps he created. Beginning to panic, he furiously attempted to carve his way through the pile, to no avail. "Da! I can't dig you out!" He scooped up hoofful after hooffull, but it was like trying to carry water in a bucket with no bottom. His father's voice fell a few notches in volume. It sounded like he was struggling for breath. "'Sall right, Bucky... Get the others outta here!" Buck froze, realizing what that entailed. "But... Da, I can't leave ya behind!" "I can't feel my legs, Buck. Me back's broken. Your mother isn't faring any better either," there was a terrible pause. "We ain't goin' anywhere." It was as if a giant hammer had suddenly come down and squashed the lanky stallion to a pulp. Buck reeled momentarily, trying to take in that information. His parents weren't going to make it. He frantically tried to bite back tears and redoubled his efforts trying to dig them out. "Bucky! Stop that! You're just causin' more ta fall on me!" "I can't just leave you!" Buck hoarsely yelled back. "Ya have ta. Get yourself and everypony else ta safety! This place is gonna come down!" Crab's voice was getting fainter by the second, and he could clearly be heard panting for breath as the pile slowly crushed him alive. Buck tried to control his breathing, which had become ragged and strained due to the poor quality of the air. "But... But..." he tried protesting again. A small peice of ceiling fell onto the floor to his left. His father's voice rebounded in volume, seemingly making the ground shake even more than it already was."SO HELP ME CELESTIA, BUCK, IF YA DON'T DO AS I SAY, I'LL COME BACK FROM WHATEVER HELL I'M GOIN' TA AND DRAG YA THERE WITH ME!" he roared. "NOW GO!" Realizing how much that effort that must have cost him, Buck hesitantly obliged, if only to prevent his father from releasing anymore precious air. In one of the gaps in the ceiling, Buck could see straight up through where his house used to stand. He could see Stable Mountain framed clearly against the smoggy sky. With a gasp, he realized that there was an enormous amount of glowing, hot, lava, quickly pouring down the mountain. It incinerated any trees it came into contact with, and seemingly melted the surface of the mountain itself, warping the slope and increasing it's speed. They needed to get out of here now. Buck turned to where the staircase led up to the first floor, only to see it had collapsed. He growled in frustration. The only way out now was the hatchway. In the back of the cellar, a small staircase led upwards till it met the hatchway. The hatchway itself was a slab of solid granite, two feet thick and several feet wide, that served as a thief-proof entryway to the underground of the farmhouse, where oftentimes valuable ciders and preservatives were stored. Buck remembered helping to install the thing. It had taken a team of ten ponies just to lift the thing with a complex crane system. It was only ever moved when there was a large quantity of items too big to carry upstairs blocked up the cellar. And it was the one thing standing between his family and freedom. Buck called out into the rubble of the basement, "Oy! Is everypony all right? We need to scoot, pronto!" A muffled assortment of assentments were made that indicated that yes, they were more or less ready to go. "Somepony carry the lovely mare who broke her leg. I'm gonna bust us outta here." He waded back through the wreckage to the small staircase and positioned himself backwards on it, his hindquarters aimed right at the slab covering the entrance. The lanky stallion's leg weights clanked together. Buck took a deep breath and reared back on his front hooves, angling his hind legs upward. He let out a grunt and proceeded to let out the hardest kick he'd ever made in his life. He struck for his father. He struck for his mother. He struck for the loss of his home. Most importantly, he struck for the rest of his kin, staring at him with wide eyes. There was an audible crack as his back hooves broke the sound barrier. The solid slab of granite shattered immediately, the peices flying upwards and out in an almost nonsensical explosion. The smokey daylight suddenly filtered into the dark basement, hurting Buck's eyes. Buck felt a strange sensation on his flank, but he didn't bother to check it, preferring instead to ignore the feeling. If he was injured, he'd sort that out later. More pressing matters deserved his attention now. He managed to call out to the basement, "Way's open, now clear out!" He stood next to the staircase as the ponies in the basement hauled themselves through the now-open portcullis, somewhat in awe of what they had just seen. The crippled mare, who was draped across the back of an older stallion, mouthed a word of thanks as she went. Buck merely nodded. Once everypony had managed to get outside, Buck turned back to the pile of wreckage in the opposite corner of the room. "Da!" There was no reply. "I just wanted to thank you. For everythin'. You helped shape me into the colt I am today. I don't care if ya can't hear me, either." He wiped a few more tears from his ocean eyes and involuntarily shuddered. "I'll see ya on the other side." He turned and bounded up the stone steps to the outside. Under the pile of wreckage, Crab Apple smiled, his heart bursting with pride. He struggled around with his remaining strength and embraced his wife's motionless body in the blackness. Side by side they lay, together in the end. Crab let out a ragged breath as his lungs refused to fill up with air. He murmured his final words into his wife's braided mane. "We'll be waitin' for ya." Author: Honestly, this was a bitch and a half to write. The original chapter was over ten thousand words, so I decided to split it up into three because I couldn't seem to put that special focus into the rest. I will put more effort into the remaining segments of Uncle Buck's Bedtime Stories and release them separately over a few days. I put out a commission for some artwork, so that is in the works, but if anypony feels generous enough to draw something, I'll feature it in the story. Anyway, the usual threats apply here. Rate, Comment, and Subscribe.