//------------------------------// // "Legend" - Part 1 // Story: "Legend" // by Novel Idea //------------------------------// “Legend” Part 1: The End. I was lost. I was forsaken. I was wild. Magic enveloped my body of its own volition. Controlled by emotions that had no control it uprooted trees and destroyed shrubbery; the clouds which filled a moonless sky whirled with cyclonic fury; the ground itself shook under the might of untamed magic. A unicorn’s magic, temporal as it is, is controlled wholly by the user’s emotions. I find myself able to explain this so calmly to you for as the magic ravaged the world around me I found my consciousness floating nearby viewing it as if through the eyes of an observer. I was not part of the rage, but I was connected to it; not part of the sadness, but I was filled with its grief. It was a moment of divine gifted clarity, though I was in control of my mind I found myself completely disconnected from my body. The brilliant navy light of my magic coloured the sky a blue to rival the deepest seas and flooded from my eyes to purge the world of all that was unfit. Everything seemed so unfit… Everything except her… Luna seemed so pristine but disconnected as I was, I found myself unable to fully appreciate the figure before me. This was the mare I had waited so very long for; this was what I had spent so long trapped in stone for. I had been imprisoned within my own mind, just as I found myself now, looking forward to nothing but her warmth again. It was taken from me. There was no warmth now. Nothing but the cold wrath of magic. “Be calm,” I reminded myself, “You don’t know what happened.” I focused inward as hard as I could; meditation was required to control one’s emotions. I had always been able to focus in on that part of myself; I had to be able to do it. Lack of control meant death. I felt it returning to me, the long needed control. The magic surging from my form subsided slowly, pulsing like a dying heart from my veins. Control. I had returned to myself. Danger, the feeling was immediate and omnipresent; the feeling of a dagger being raised behind my back. An enemy preparing itself for the kill. Flexing my legs my muscles triggered long un-used blades hidden beneath my coat. Sounds pervaded the resounding silence which was the aftermath of my magical tirade. “How many?” I asked my senses, five, or six? No. Eight, there were eight of them hiding nearby. Armed I felt ready to face them, limbs shaking with age and fury. Who would dare interrupt my sorrow? The first of my foes came into sight and I bit back the stinging release of my breath. I had lived a hard life and seen horrors that would haunt the most sturdy and stoic of ponies but never before had I seen such a wretched looking creature. The unicorn before me, if it was still to be called by such a noble breed, was emancipated beyond belief, chunks of flesh appeared to be missing, bone was exposed where they had broken and forced through the skin. The creature’s face was withdrawn and hollow, like a skeleton starving for a flicker of life. I steeled myself, it was just another pony; it would bleed and feel pain like any other. It was then, to my infinite horror that the beast before me spoke. “You… you have the magic! Give it to us!” it howled in what once could have been a noble and rich voice; dried and rasping in hollow lungs. Then the beast before me lunged. I raised my hooves in defence, the tips of my blades came right to the base of my hoof, and they were slashing weapons; not stabbing. I felt the movement of the other seven bodies as from all sides they rushed me, their sickness no different from the one before me. Every one of them a unicorn like myself. As if the trumpets had sounded and the judge had come to call did the ‘sun’ rise behind me, and crashed through the monstrous creatures with abandon. Its hooves lashed out against them, withered mane flew through the air with the force of such great an impact. Terror coloured the monsters’ faces and they turned and fled before the faded might of so glorious a ‘sun’, leaving me behind stunned at the brutality I had just seen. Before me was the Princess I had known as Celestia, the very sun herself and ruler over all of Equestria. The Alicorn’s body was scarred and marred far past its former perfection, a patch strapped across her face covered where her right eye used to be, a wing was missing from her back, the other heavily bandaged and strapped to her side. The magic that had once been her very lifeblood had seemed to leave Celestia in the years of my imprisonment; for all intents and purposes she looked no better off than the misshapen creatures that she had just forced to route. Her mane was flat and fell about her like well-kept straw, its magical force long since faded; even the colour of her eye seemed to have been tainted by the darkness which permeated this moonless night. We faced each other for a long time, two sides of the same coin. We had both loved Luna, though in very different ways, and we had both (as far as I was concerned) suffered a terrible loss. I had asked for my punishment, I had planned on being turned to stone; I knew I could not fault Celestia for doing what she did. But that didn’t stop my rage from forcing me to plant a left hay-maker right into her skull the moment she went to talk. XXXXXXX Celestia woke with a start, I had laid her out before me and assuming that she would react in such a way constructed a fire a good few feet from her inert form. I sat waiting for her to awaken, amazed that I had been able to lay her low with a single punch of my hoof. My old limbs must still have some fight left in them. After the initial panic she looked to me and moved closer to the fire, she seemed so small now; as if her once massive height had been nothing more than an illusion. I had noticed her emancipation, though not as severe as the other unicorns that had attacked me. A shadow of her former self. I waited for her explanation, her excuse; I had come to realize that I was not mad at her for imprisoning me, but for failing to protect my Princess while I was away. Failing Luna was an unforgiveable crime as far as I was concerned. When no explanation came I made the first move, pulling my eyes off her form and focusing on the ravaging fire. “Well… what happened…?” I had no other words, all of my rage had been injected into that attack I had levelled with her face. The emotions inside of me had sunken to a numbing depression; there was no room for the rage I wanted to feel. The weight of my years pressed down on me, it truly felt like all my years spent within the stone had been for nothing. “It started shortly after you were imprisoned… maybe ten years later.” Celestia began looking away, there was unfinished business between them but that would have to wait. “Magic started to leave the land; the unicorns found they had less and less control… Then the deaths started happening.” The regal Princess darkened in the shadows of the flame looked such a pitiful creature to me. “All of the magic had left us, and it was killing us. Without the magic in our veins many unicorns found their hearts unable to beat… It affect emotional state, appetite, sanity… We started to lose more and more like the ones you saw earlier…the Wild. Those who didn’t die wish that they had… or lose themselves completely in the thirst for magic.” “Then the symptoms started to affect Luna…” she trailed off, her voice breaking a little. Without her magic what was she? No different than any other pony in this land… without her power what made her so special. I looked at Celestia for a long moment considering my response; I wanted to get angry, to hate her, to judge her for not being able to stop this plague before it took my Luna. But I knew that it wasn’t her fault… it was unavoidable… “She died.” I said looking down to the ground, defeated. I had to admit it, or I would never move past it… “No… she lives still.” Celestia said, I could feel her one eye on my; the rugged muscles in my face clenched. Not able to bear a “Luna lives on in all of us” speech, that bullshit was for children. “Did you not read the full inscription on her statue?” I lifted my head and met her eye, my own like the dagger emblazoned on my flank. Turning I looked to the statue off in the distance, was there something I had missed? I moved away from Celestia in dead silence, and I believe she fully understood that if I found no proof there that I would come back to the flame filled with murderous intent. The vines beneath the inscription taunted and teased me as if I was nothing more than a petulant child. Dagger unsheathed I cut down the vines slowly, not wishing to damage the figure before me. In the dull starlight, flickered with the dancing the flame other words followed beneath the original. Now the full inscription read: “Here lies Luna, Princess of Equestria. I wait for you still, my Night.” I bit back the tears that had risen in my eyes, and lashed out against the painful tug in my heart. She still existed, trapped within this stone was my Princess. My Moon… I moved up and pressed my horn to hers and closed my eyes. The cold stone beneath me, at least within my mind, disappeared and for just the fraction of this present she was there. Reality cold and hard came back to me though, but now… now I had a mission, a job to do. My life had purpose again. My legacy needed me. I returned to Celestia and sat down in silence, staring at her and nothing else. It was time to hear the rest of her story. “The plague had spread to my sister and in order for her to last beyond the point when we may be able to form a cure she requested I trap her in stone… though now that you’re set free I’m worried about how long it will hold…” he voice trailed off and her eye focused on the figure behind me. “What does that mean? How long have I been out?” I asked, worried; this was setting a time limit, if I didn’t find out how to stop this then it would mean the end for Luna. I needed to know the window. “You were only imprisoned for thirty-five years Silk…” Celestia said turning back to me. “Your stone was formed to last a lot longer than hers was though… so I don’t know when it will give.” She said. “Well buck me, push it aside Silk, focus.” I though, pulling, myself from my fears. “Has this hit the other races…?” I asked, curious if it was unicorn specific. The magic was ours, the other races did indeed have magic; anypony schooled in the arts was aware of a primordial magic which existed in all things. “Until recently yes, but in the last five years the Pegasi and the Earth Ponies have begun to show similar symptoms. Pegasi born with the inability to control the weather, or walk on clouds; Earth Ponies being born disconnected and lost, almost as if they are trapped in some kind of internal prison.” Celestia hoofed the ground and shook her head violently to push it all from her mind. “It strikes the ponies in the womb as well… the unicorn population has been cut in half and only one in every five is born… if this keeps up in time all of us will be gone.” It was a bitter truth, even if someponies develop immunity or survive losing their magic it could still be assumed that they were carriers; that their children would not be as immune. “I don’t know what to do Silk…” she whispered hopelessly. “Well I’m not about to let Luna die.” I said adamantly. The Princess looked at me for a long, confused moment as the full weight of my statement came to bare. “I’ll find a way to rid us of this plague and cure everypony I can. For her… I’ll do anything.” I said looking back to Luna. “Get me everything and everypony you can spare anypony worth their weight…” I said getting up from the fire. I was not naïve enough to understand what this was going to entail. Celestia rose with me and nodded in my direction. “I have to stay here and try to rule my people… I will send for my most trusted subjects… they should be here in the morning.” She began to walk away, but paused as something within her mind was recalled. “She always went back you know? To the place where you two were together; she was trapped there long after I opened the gate… She never got over it.” Celestia said before galloping off into the darkness. I looked after her white coat for a moment before she vanished and gave my shoulders a roll. All she had just done was confirm for me that the first stop on this journey would be back to that spot… Back to the place where Luna and I spent our week together. It was time to go home.