Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did.
Memories of a Lost Time Chapter One:
Streak's Entrance
Who was he? Where was he? He could not remember. All he knew was the Void.
He floated, blackness, all around him. His hooves flailing and hitting nothing. His eyes straining and not even seeing his muzzle in front of his face. The cold made his fur stand on end. It smothered him, choked him, blinded him. It was nowhere, but you could not escape from it. It was nothing, but was still real. It was empty, but encompassed all of his sight. It was intangible, but its touch was worse than agony. Time meant nothing, it didn't exist in the Void. An instant could be an instant, or it could be a hundred years. The sheer weight of the nothingness around him pressed into him. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
Did he have friends before? Did he have a family?
But the Void was not alone. Some parts of this void were lighter, being just black rather than a pitch black void that sucked all being out of you for just being near it. These black parts he started calling the Ebon. Was the Ebon was left by a friend, to keep him from being consumed completely by the Void? Was it a natural feature of the Void? His every move was agony inside the Void. Bits and pieces of him were torn off by the Void with agonizing patience. It was ravenous, merciless, pitiless, and he seemed like the only thing around for it to eat. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
Why was he here? What exactly was this strange place? What purpose did it serve?
The Void hungered. It ripped at his essence, ravenously devouring every bit of him that it could tear from him. Every passing second in the Void and he grew weaker. Every passing second in the Void and it grew stronger. The Void swallowed everything. Memories, feelings, thoughts, the Void did not care. This was his punishment for a crime he could no longer recall. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
What did he do to deserve the Void? Better yet, what could he have done to deserve the Void?
The Void ate the Ebon, just like it ate him. The Ebon slowly dissolved back into the Void it emerged from. The Ebon was his only ally in this strange place. He was eaten, the Ebon was eaten. He was in pain, the Ebon was in pain. The Ebon knew what he went through, since it went through it itself. The Void was hungry, and they both were food.
Did he have allies out of the Void? Had he always been alone?
He floated into a piece of the Ebon. The Void had been tearing into him for too long. He forgot what it felt like to not be continually consumed. The Ebon strengthened him. The mere absence of pain was a drug so potent that it made the return plunge into the Void all the worse. This was its gravest sin against him. The Ebon was not left by a friend, it was left by his worst enemy. The Ebon felt so good it hurt, then made the Void hurt more. The Ebon was false hope of redemption, and the Void reminded him of that fact. Painfully. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
Why did he not remember anything? Was he going mad? Was he already mad?
The Ebon tricked him every time. He would arrive inside the borders and rejoice, for the pain was gone. The Ebon had not abandoned him. He cried out in agony when he inevitably drifted back out of his 'savior' and back to the Void. Or rather, he tried to. The Void had no sound but a conglomeration of voices, constantly whispering to him with maddening half understood syllables. No feeling but excruciating pain of being torn to pieces by a unyielding ravager. No taste but the copper of his own blood. No sight but the eternal emptiness of the Void. No smell but that of his own death. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
What could he remember? Start with that.
The Void returned, assaulting his essence with an avaricious, insatiable desire for his being. It clove off fragments of his soul, hungrily consuming him alive. The agony was too much to bear and, were it not for the enchantments put on him ages since, he would have fallen into madness long ago. The void tore at everything he was, and only her spells kept his intact enough to function. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
“Her.” He remembered a female. Woman? Mare? Heifer?
Madness would be preferable to sanity in the Void. The mad don't register pain, don't feel the agony of being slowly detached, piece by piece. Her spells kept him alive and sane. They were in the way. He wanted insanity. He wanted death. He wanted some kind of escape. He needed to remember. The Void was hungry, and he was food.
She was a mare. He remembered the sun. The moon. A battle between the two, ending with his imprisonment here. With a sudden final cry that echoed throughout the Void, he felt his memories returning to him. Something both warm and cold simultaneously spread through his limbs, pushing out the pain that had been there for ages. He watched in wonder as the pieces of him riven by the Void were replaced by a red glow. He sat mesmerized in awe as the holes in his chest and shoulders, holes that had taken his whole time in the Void to appear, suddenly disappeared. As the spread down his back, he saw all the wounds there evaporate as if the flesh that was missing was just hiding under a layer of nothingness.
As his left fore-hoof returned to him, he remembered a monster, a mare, a friend, and a betrayal. Pain, not the physical kind he had dealt with for years in the Void, but the kind you only get from the betrayal of someone extremely close to you. He remembered battles as his right back hoof regenerated, two victorious, one lost. The enchantments placed on him by her faded as he regained his being. He felt the void retreating from him, quivering from him in terror and dismay as he grew in strength. The Void could no longer hurt him. Now he had the power, and the Void was afraid. The Ebon, devoid of its sustaining enchantments, shattered into thousands of shards that were practically inhaled by the Void, now devoid of its food source and lashing out for anything else. The Void was hungry, and the Void be damned!
He remembered the aftermath of that lost battle with his right fore-hoof, the distinct lack of death. Not one of his stallions had died. Death wasn't bad enough for their 'crimes,' they deserved far worse. He had gotten worse, and he had beaten it, maybe the others had too. He forced himself to take a breath, air slowly filling his lungs. He felt grass start to appear under his hooves. There was a faint breeze that he could barely feel that slowly built up in speed. He focused on not forgetting anything. He mentally nailed down his foalhood, he tied down his years in the guard, he grasped desperately on his “death,” needing something to hold on to. He gained strength from the righteous fury he drew from his manifold companions who betrayed him and the return of his final limb. He focused on his name, making sure to never forget it again. He forced his thick tongue to move. He needed to hear it.
“Streak,” he breathed out thick and hoarsely, and finally opened his eyes, spreading an explosion of red light to everything that could see him. His body fully reformed inside that light, and Streak knew his reformation was complete. He was back, and he had a mission. He cared none about her power. He cared none about her influence over entire generations of ponies. He knew he had one reason to be alive. He had to kill her.
Or die trying.