It took me some time before I finally felt ready enough to go to the Hall of Undoing. The wounds inflicted upon me by Insidious and his minions were more severe than we had at first thought, and the one on the back of my leg could have crippled me, were it not for Luna.
She did so much for me, and expected nothing in return. It puzzled me to no end why the princess of the night, one of the most powerful beings on the planet, would consider me worthy enough to take care of and raise as her own. What could I ever be that she wasn’t, that she couldn’t? What was it that drove her to do what she did? I’d never learn that. She took it with her to the moon, and even now, as I feel my body weakening, waiting for death, those secrets elude me.
Regardless, it was over a month before I finally worked up the strength to go to the Hall of Undoing. During that time, Luna’s battalion of Night Guards had searched all over Equestria to find the survivors from the village. But there had been nothing. They hadn’t found hide nor hair of any of the ponies that had escaped the blaze. After two weeks, they were ready to give it up, but Luna kept them at it. Now that a month had gone by, Luna finally relented. The ponies were still marked as Missing, but Luna felt she knew the truth.
They were gone. And this time, I believed her. I could no longer feel Breeze like I could that first night. She was gone. Maybe not dead, but she was most certainly not here.
The night Luna made the call, I was working on building my strength back up. More specifically, I was sprinting around the outer walls of the castle. I had been running for some time, my endurance less than what it had been, when Luna finally caught up to me. She landed beside me gracefully as I struggled to catch my breath. It hadn’t been easy to run as hard as I had. I knew that the wounds had taken their toll on me, and that I would never be as strong as I once was. That didn’t stop me trying, stubborn as I was.
She frowned as she watched me, struggling not to vomit on the ground in front of me. The walls had just been cleaned earlier that day, and I’m pretty sure Luna would have had a fit had I removed the contents of my stomach in front of her on the nice, shiny wall.
“Thou are pushing thyself too hard, Shade,” she scolded, laying a hoof on me gently. “Thou must realize that, because of those wounds inflicted upon thee, thou will never be as strong as thou once was. Thou must accept that.” I nodded half heartedly, still panting. She had been using older Equish a lot more often, and it was somewhat amusing to me, but she was right, even if I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to accept that I had royally screwed up. I didn’t want to take the blame. I didn’t want to admit that I had made the mistake.
But I had no choice. My foolish pride, I realized, would be the death of me. I had to try and fight it. I had messed up, and because of that, I was not only weakened, but I had let our foe slip away with only a small wound, insignificant to the beast. Nothing I could do could make up for that. But I had to try.
Luna called me out of my reverie when she continued speaking. “Shade, there is something more. It has been a month... we are calling off the search. We feel that there is nothing more to profit in scouring the land for ponies who we are sure are no more. We tried, Shade, we tried so hard to find them, to find her. We are... I am so sorry.”
What I felt at that moment, I will never be able to describe. The emotions were so cluttered, so disjointed, that I could barely produce coherent thought. All I knew is that she was right. My wife was gone. Gone from this world. We had been together for not even a year, and already, I had to bear the pain of losing her. It was exactly what I had feared would happen from the beginning, but had been too foolish to care about. I couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, I couldn’t even produce tears. My body simply refused to work. I barely even registered that Luna had spoken in singular wording again.
Then the wall came up. Something inside of me snapped, and my emotions faded away, sealing themselves in a place my mind refused to delve into. My pain, my sorrow, a part of who I was, was cut off from me. I was broken, a different pony than the one who had been running not five minutes earlier. This new pony refused to let my emotions hinder me. And I knew what I had to do. I had to break Insidious. I had to kill him. And the Hall of Undoing held the key. Only then could I finally be free. Free of pain. Free of remorse. Free of monsters and evil constantly ripping away from me what I valued most. Free of him.
And that’s when my mind started to embrace something. A shadow at the back of my mind gave me a point on which to fix my blame. And that point was Luna. I blamed her for what I was feeling. I blamed her for the death of my wife. I blamed her for everything. She was the reason that I was constantly throwing myself in harms way, risking my life so that her night might be liberated. It was completely unjustified, and I knew it, but I didn’t care. I wanted a vent for my fury. She was that vent.
I lifted my head, and, without so much as a passing glance to Luna, I walked away. She seemed stunned, now that I look back, but I barely even noticed at that moment. I had one thing on my mind, and that was to go. Luna called out to me, and I stopped, turning to level my gaze at her. She froze under my stare, and part of me felt sorry that I was so cold to her. The rest of me could care less.
“What... where are you going?” She asked hesitantly. I rolled my eyes and turned about, continuing my march to my room - her room - but I gave her an answer.
“To the Hall of Undoing. I’m going to end this.” I don’t know what I did to her with my response, but I know Luna didn’t stop me. She should have, though. She should have stopped me right then, should have forced me to think it through, should have let me cry the pain away. Instead, she let me walk away.
And to this day, I still regret not turning back.
__________
Less than a day later, the amulet around my neck, I arrived at the Hall of Undoing once more. The ruin hadn’t changed since my last visit. It was largely unremarkable, a decent sized stone building, half tilted into the dirt around it. Vegetation was creeping up the sides, coating the grey craftsmanship in fields of green. And, to top it all off, there was still no door. No latches, no handles, no levers, no buttons, not even a knob or pressure plate. Nothing. The walls were carved from a single piece of uncut stone, smooth and imposing. And unrelenting.
I watched the ruin, trying to decipher how I was to get in. Luna was trying to reason with me. I could hear her voice in my head, trying to bring me back, trying to tell me I was being rash and foolish, trying to console and comfort me. I ignored her, trying as hard as I could to block her out. I didn’t want her sympathy anymore. I wanted justice. I wanted revenge. And I would do anything to achieve that goal, regardless of the cost.
As I approached the ruin, the amulet around my neck began to glow. I paused, looking down in wonder as the glowing began to turn into a full fledged light. The amulet was giving off raw, magical power the likes of which I had never felt before. But this was no benevolent power. The power radiating outwards was dark in nature, similar to the shadow magic I so loved. And, as I watched, the power began to seep into me. I could feel it trying to breach my mind, and for a moment, the mental barrier I had set up broke as I realized that this power was trying to attack me, to destroy my mind.
But I was wrong. The power wanted a point of focus, and instead of attacking me, it seeped into my horn and out in a beam of power. The amount of pure energy pouring out of me was staggering, and I nearly blacked out from the spell that I was unwillingly casting. After a long moment which felt like an eternity, the spell ended, leaving me to crumple to the ground, gasping for air. My head felt like it had been crushed by a hydra, and I could barely focus. To my relief, although I wouldn’t admit it right then, Luna hadn’t left me. She began to take the pain away into her own body. I was surprised by this, but then remembered that alicorns have a higher tolerance to pain than normal ponies. What was mind numbing to me was only a bad migraine to her.
Rising unsteadily, I looked towards the ruin, where the beam had been shot. My jaw dropped in disbelief. There, in the center of the unbroken wall nearest me, was a doorway. Beyond it lay a darkness so thick, I swear I could have cut it with a knife. I could see nothing inside of the ruin, so I approached cautiously. By this time, I had stopped ignoring Luna, if only because she had just saved me from severe mental trauma.
‘Shade... did it work? What was that?’ She asked, her voice pained and laden with worry. I peered into the ruin, doing my best to try and keep as low a profile as possible.
‘The amulet reacted violently to being in such close proximity to the ruin. But, there is a doorway. I can’t see in, though.’ I replied, steeling myself for what lay ahead. I knew that something important lay inside. And whatever it was, it could change the tide of the whole struggle. I had to find out. But the dark unnerved me. It was so perfectly dark, it was as if the chambers inside swallowed light.
‘Be careful.’ I nodded, and, lighting my horn with a basic light spell, stepped forward into the ruin.
Instantly I realized that this was no ordinary darkness. My magic spell, though weak, should have given off a great deal more light than it was. This darkness was enchanted. And magic could not break it. Immediately I sidled over to the wall and pressed myself against it, taking precautions in the event that threats lay within. As it happened, I managed to press myself against a sconce in the wall, in which was resting an unlit torch. It seemed the magic of the ruin did more than just make the dark terrifying, it preserved whatever was inside of it.
I knew that the torch may be able to breach the darkness, but I was none too keen on lighting it. Elemental magic had always been a challenge for me, fire being the worst. But I had to try. I struggled to remember the spell I needed to light it. And, once I did remember, I struggled even more to produce the flames the spell called for. After much straining, the torch flared into live, as new and bright as the day it had been placed there. I smiled, tired and mentally strained from trying to light the thing.
Removing it from the sconce, I turned and swung the torch into the darkness. Instantly there was a change. It was still quite dark, but the torch was producing ample light to allow me to see. And it gave off enough light to reveal what was on the wall opposite me. I gazed in awe at what was now revealed to me.
Stepping over, I took in the sight of the carving on the wall. A beautiful picture had been painstakingly crafted into the wall, the unicorn that did the work sparing no expense on the artwork. It was quite amazing. But what was more amazing was the condition of the carving. For as old as the ruin appeared to be, the preserving magic did more than keep the torches usable. It made the pictures clear. And it made the writing below it legible.
Or it would have been, if I could read it. I called to Luna for her aid. ‘What is it? What didst thou find?’
‘It’s a wall carving, and it confirms Insidious’ claims. Seven alicorns stand beneath six rays of light. And one of them looks exactly like that damned monster. There’s writing below it, but I can’t read it. It’s not a language I’m familiar with.’ I felt Luna’s presence fill me more fully, and a strange tingling sensation settled itself behind my eyes. I heard Luna mumbling something to herself as she studied the writing through my eyes.
Of course thou is not able to read that. It is First Era Equish. Writing like this hasn’t seen the light of day for more than six millennia. This is quite the find. And, if this is a carving, it gives us a good guess as to just how old the ruin is. We will spare the details, as we would much rather it be that thou were able to decipher them. Hold still.’ I felt her presence wash into my mind, her magic igniting inside of my consciousness. As I watch, the strange script began to morph and twist before my eyes, Luna’s magic granting me the knowledge of how to read this ancient text. Not long after, in perfect Equish, there lay an inscription.
‘Six beings of great power, before all was, united to bring life to the world on which we now live, the world of Equis. As they parted, the beings created seven overseers to watch over the races. These overseers, two pairs of siblings and three single children, were granted a piece of the power and magic of the beings, transforming their bodies, and giving them flight and magic. The names of these seven have been lost to time, and there are none alive who remember them.’
I paused, tilting my head in confusion. ‘This doesn’t make sense. There should be some record of the names of these seven.’ Luna agreed, but did so half heartedly.
‘Indeed, but maybe there are reasons the names are now lost. We think that these alicorns may have planned it so that their true legacy was lost.’ I nodded, about to turn away, when another thought entered my mind. And it was one that was not only ironic, but infuriating to me due to the pure hypocrisy.
‘Insidious complained that the natural born line of alicorns was dying, but he himself was born of magic. Unbelievable.’ I growled and shook my head, turning away from the carving and looking towards the wall opposite me. To my surprise, there was another carving there, along with another inscription. It seemed that this place was a place of history. A record of things past. But I also remembered that Insidious had wanted to “refresh his memory” on what the walls said. Perhaps there was more than just history.
Prophecy.
I calmly strode to the next carving, giving it a quick once over. ‘There’s another. It’s got two alicorns standing before one of the beams from the previous carving. Insidious is not one of them.’ I turned my attention to the inscription below it. After I finished reading it, I tilted my head.
‘That can’t be right. These carvings are in impeccable condition, and yet there’s text missing here. It says that the beings were blessed with deep magic because of... something that had a natural connection with chaos. The beings were putting the magic in the alicorns as a failsafe in case whatever it was became too much for the alicorns to handle.’ Shade tilted his head and frowned. ‘What is it that got wiped off the carvings? What happened to wipe it off, anyway?’ Luna didn’t respond immediately.
‘Could it be Insidious wiped himself off?’ I shook my head.
‘Not likely. If he wiped himself off, why leave himself in the first carving?’ Luna seemed to agree with that, but still seemed a bit troubled.
‘But what could it be, then? The spell in question is one known to us. It is a very powerful memory spell, made to remove all traces of the beings existence from the world. Texts, works, and most importantly, memories. It is a spell that no soul can cast alone, but it is feasible. But the question we have now is why?’ I was as lost as she. Whatever was hidden, whatever was wiped away, it was done so for a reason. And we had no idea why. I turned from the carving and moved on, further into the ruin. Every so often carvings and inscriptions would appear out of the shadows. It was all a history of our race.
It started with the founding of the old kingdoms, when the races were divided into three factions. It moved on to the great war between the pegasi and the unicorns, the one that had nearly ravaged all Equestria to the point of making it uninhabitable. Other races had joined in, including the beings that had been wiped away from the previous text, and this only made it all the worse. In the end, the seven alicorns had to intervene - and that was when the legend of their race being divines came into being - and by their actions, all Equestria was saved. For several thousand years there was an unstable peace between the kingdoms. But it was shattered in the blizzard that ravaged part of our land, and thus began the tale of Hearth’s Warming Eve. But it was an event right after the unified Equestria was founded that caught my eye. I stopped, gazing at it in wonder.
‘Okay, I get it that the wiping away was powerful, but this is ridiculous. There’s a whole chunk of the carving missing here. It shows an alicorn being struck down, but there’s nothing doing the killing. This place is getting a little too strange for me.’ Luna agreed, and my eyes glanced over the text. It was so riddled with missing pieces that it was difficult to decipher exactly what had happened, but one sentence caught my eye: ‘It was not the first time this has happened.’
‘We gather that this must be after Insidious’ murder of his sister, yes?’ I grunted in affirmation, turning away to find the next carving. But I was surprised when I found that the next carving no longer existed. It had been completely wiped out, except for two words: ‘The Purge’. I paused, gazing at the words in wonder.
‘Do you have any idea what this means, Luna?’ She gave me a negative, so I went on. I had no idea what it meant by Purge, but I understood that this was the moment when the spell was cast, wiping whatever race had been so in tune with chaos out of existence. It confused me, but I cast it to the back of my mind. The carvings were moving into more modern events. Discord’s sealing away was on the wall, as well as the pegasi revolt at the end of the Second Era. There were more, but none caught my eye for some time.
Not until I saw myself.
I stopped dead in my tracks. ‘No way. No way in Tartarus that’s...’ Trying to convince myself otherwise did nothing to remove the carving from the wall. It was a carving of myself facing down Insidious, crossbow out and empty. The bolt was lodged in the back of Insidious’ leg, the same leg that I had hit the night I had met with him. And even the wounds I had received were on the carving of me. I read the inscription quickly.
‘At the time of the last hunter, The Eldest of All Evil will return to Equestria from his slumber. The hunter will make his stand against him, but it has been foreordained that the hunter shall surely die...’ I stopped, gasping and dropping the torch as my eyes crossed the last part of the inscription. ‘No... that... that’s impossible.’ Luna was slightly confused.
‘Shade, what is it? What hast made thou so frightened?’ I hesitated. My emotional wall was still shattered, and for the time, I had temporarily forgiven her for breaking me, so I was conflicted as to whether or not I should tell her about what I had read. Seeing as she could easily find it out if she wanted, I decided to take the easy route of honesty.
‘The hunter shall surely die at the hoof of the one who raised him.’ I didn’t want to believe it. Luna seemed at a loss as well. This wasn’t just a prophecy - one that had come true for the most part - but it was also the declaration of my death. I refused to believe it, refused to accept that this wall was telling me that I would die by Luna’s hoof. But I couldn’t deny that the carving was accurate to what had happened, despite being carved thousands of years prior. ‘This is impossible. You wouldn’t... you would never...’
‘Thou need not worry. As long as we live and draw breath, we refuse to bring thou to any harm. That demon shall not have his way with us.’ I was still distressed from what I had seen, but Luna’s words gave me a bit of relief. I turned away quickly, picking up the torch and moving on to the next carving. It didn’t help my nerves at all. In fact, it only made things worse for me.
‘I don’t believe this... this is you... no, wait, it looks like you, but it’s not. Whatever this pony is... she’s blotted out the sun, and she’s killed Celestia.’ I shook my head. ‘This place is evil. If this is what Insidious wanted me to see, then he’s absolutely twisted. And kind of foolish. Why is he revealing his plan to me?’ Luna didn’t respond. I felt that she had pulled herself away, leaving me alone in the ruin. Something I said about the most recent carving must have made her very uneasy. I resolved to deal with it later, instead turning to the text.
‘The day will come when the younger will lose herself to her emotions. It is then that the Nightmare shall come in. On that day, the sun shall fail to rise, and the elder shall fall. The night will last for eternity, and the whole of the world will descend into darkness.’ So that was it. That was his plan. He wanted to take Luna for himself, and make her his weapon, the thing that would undo the day. That was why she was targeted. But his method was strange. ‘Lose herself to her emotions? The Nightmare shall come in? That makes no sense.’
‘It makes perfect sense to us, Shade.’ Luna had come back without my knowledge. The was a great deal of pain and sorrow in her voice, but I wasn’t as concerned as I was confused.
‘What do you mean it makes sense? What does it mean?’ She was silent. I asked again, but she refused to answer. Although I was growing slightly worried for her, I was more furious than concerned at her silence. Growling to myself, I turned away from it and tried to move further into the ruin, only to find myself facing the back wall. There was one last carving here. I felt my eyes go wide and the blood drain from my face. The torch fell once again as my magic failed, rolling over to the foot of the wall, giving the carving an eerie glow.
Two alicorns stood side by side, on a balcony overlooking Canterlot. Behind them and off in the upper left, the moon stood in it’s place, unmoving and bright. And at the hooves of the two alicorns, there lay the body of a unicorn stallion. His body was burned, bloody and broken, with the hoof of the female alicorn resting on his head. It was obvious to me who the three figures were. And I was frightened. This was the end of the prophecy. And it was a gruesome end for all.
This carving had no inscription. The picture spoke for itself. At the end of this conflict, Insidious and his partner, the alicorn who looked like Luna, would win, I would be dead, and the night would last forever. It was no pleasant picture, but it was the one that Insidious was working towards. One that I had to stop.
‘Prophecies like this... they can be undone, can’t they?’ I got no response from Luna. ‘Luna... these can be undone, right? Right?’ Still nothing from her. It was the first time I had been legitimately afraid in years. This was something beyond my control, and it was something that was condemning me to die.
But that wasn’t the only thing that was hidden in the ruin. I felt something odd beneath my hooves, and, looking down, spotted a strange circular pattern on the floor beneath my hooves. There was an indentation in the center, small around round, almost the perfect size for the amulet I wore. Deciding to give it a try, I took the amulet off and placed it into the indent. It slid gently in and began to glow again. I had to hop quickly out of the way as a large cylinder rose out of the floor and into the chamber. It appeared to be hollow, with a latched door on the front visible from the glow of the torch and the amulet. Undoing the latch, I slid the door open.
To my surprise, there wasn’t much inside. It seems that whatever this vault held, most of it had already been looted. There were a few scraps of paper, an old book, and two scrolls still inside, along with empty containers and wall sconces. I took a quick look at the book, levitating it and the torch to myself. The cover was blank, as were the pages inside. Sighing, I threw it back in, glancing quickly at the scraps of paper as I took the two scrolls. They appeared to have writing on them, but most of it was smudged and faded. The vault may have done it’s job in preserving them, but the spell must have been damaged the first time it was opened, explaining the poor conditions of what lay within.
Opening the scrolls, my attention was immediately captured by what was upon them. They were blueprints. Blueprints and schematics for weapons, of ancient design, and most certainly not made by Equestrians. Looking them over, I realized that the weapons would be useless to me, as half of the equipment was foreign to me. But there were some elements that intrigued me. It was then I formulated a plan. I had lost my first crossbow to Insidious. But with the designs on this page, I could make a new one. A better one.
The emotional wall was suddenly repaired. I felt nothing but loathing and burning rage in my soul. I now had the means to enact my revenge. I would not allow the prophecy to come about. I was going to defy my fate.
That was what started my descent.