//------------------------------// // Gravity // Story: Mercury's Misadventures In Author Land // by Mercury Zero //------------------------------// The blue pegasus pony gasped when the sword landed close enough to shear away the tips of his mane. The force of the blade crashed into the earth powerfully enough to vibrate the ground at his hooves, and kick up flecks of dust and stone that pattered back down to earth on his muzzle. He rose himself from the ground with a mighty thrust of his forelegs. He was fixated on the sword, and it was vulnerable. With a scrape and rip at the earth behind him, he thrust and bucked forward, diving onto the sword and pounding both forehooves onto it hard enough to slam it down onto its side into the earth before the princess could lift it again with her magic. “I don’t want to hurt you!” Domitius begged; screamed, in fact. “Stay away from me!” The twin sisters of day and night stood on the hilltop above Domitius, and looked down with fear and disdain. He grimaced with fury at the sight of their faces. They didn’t care about his fear. He was practically dripping with it. He wanted to scream and beg, and cry that he doesn’t want to die. Not here, not like this. He bit down on the silver hilt of the ornately gilded blade and leapt toward the royal sisters with a blast of his wings so powerful that it tore the earth below him. He sailed into a lazy arc above their heads, and looked down at them at the very crest of his launch. There’s a point in every leap when everything is still. You’re neither going up, nor down. It’s as if you’re weightless, and Domitius lingered there in his mind, looking down at the dropped jaws of the terrified princesses. He wanted to stay there forever, rather than do this, but gravity doesn’t wait. An instant is always just an instant. With another thrust of his wings, powerful enough to crack they red stone valley with the echoing sound of thunder, he launched himself downward with the sharp end of his new blade turned toward his enemies. The impact of his body into the earth rocked the valley with a furious bassy pound, and a plume of rock and dirt rose up to encompass the three combattants. There was a flash of blue and yellow that blasted through the hazy brown cloud of floating earth with rapid pulses, making it grow even bigger. Fissures tore through the earth, centering on the explosive melee, and after a moment of building tension, the earth tore itself asunder in an explosion that shred the hilltop like confetti. Domitius launched free of the blast. His teeth were chattering, and his body was quivering so hard that he could barely hold on to his, now blood soaked, blade. He tried to redirect himself to a soft landing in a tree, but he landed on the earth with a bounce, and a loud crack, before tumbling end over end for several agonizing seconds from his rough landing. He struggled to get to his feet, panting now, and wailing out at the unfairness of his predicament. “I never asked for this! It took me! I never wanted it inside me!” Domitius’s body made soft crunching sounds as it mended itself. His wings popped and twisted back into shape as his body repaired itself. The sudden feeling made him choke on a silent scream, and buckle under the pain. Celestia, spattered with blood, stepped slowly toward Domitius with a sorrowful expression as he writhed in pain during his regeneration. She leaned down, and her horn glowed. Before long, it was a blinding, piercing pinprick of light that left blinding spots on his vision even through his closed eyelids and held up fore hoof. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Domitius screamed as he weakly tried to skitter away. He felt himself being levitated with a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Am I not a pony to you? I’m a pony! I’m not a monster!” Domitius hovered there, and opened his eyes to the light. He took a deep breath. There it was again; just like that moment, right at the very top of a leap, when everything is still, when everything is quiet, that singular instant before the inevitability of gravity turns the tide, and brings you down.