Prompt #483: “What Shall It Profit A Pony…”
“Oh, no, not me.
I never lost control.
You’re face to face
With the mare who sold the world.”
Elixir hit the ground hard.
"Aughh..." he moaned.
He felt his way through his limbs. Nothing seemed broken outright, though his back right leg was twitching with a relatively biting pain... Maybe a sprain? He'd have to try walking on it.
Gathering his forelegs under him, Elixir stood up slowly, being careful about putting weight on his leg. Once fully upright and still lacking any major aches and pains, he declared the joint fit for use.
For the first time, Elixir glanced around. He couldn't see much, as the broken sewer grate he had fallen through was a good fifteen feet above his head and it was sunset anyway. However, he was able to make out enough to tell that he had a decision to make.
He could go forward, or he could go backward.
Of course it was also possible that he could sit around at the bottom of the sewer, hoping a pegasus would come along, but the street he had been walking on the side of had been abandoned, and night was fast approaching.
Forward it was. At least he'd still be going in the same direction. Probably.
Elixir started off.
At least an hour or so later, he wasn't feeling too good about his chances of getting out of the sewer any time soon. About a hundred feet from his point of landing, the sewer tunnel had begun to slope downwards. It had continued to do so, and had not yet stopped. He thought that maybe he should've turned around, but it was too late now.
He needed to find somewhere to stay, and fast. The sewers weren't safe, Elixir knew.
Continuing to trudge on the grime-slick stone next to a rather unfortunately smelling river of pony waste mixed with (again by the smell) aciret, Elixir suddenly came to a door.
And not a door that fit in, either.
It was an old door, and a wooden door. A wooden door! It was covered in an unidentifiable green substance, but not one that smelled nearly as bad as everything else. It was actually kind of... fresh. Fresh, in a nice way.
Elixir knocked on the door.
Silence. He looked more closely at it.
...words? Yes, words, inscribed on the door, but eaten nearly away by time. He could pick out a letter here or and there, but even then he really was only guessing that they were letters at all, as he could hardly recognize them--
"Ana aksa trifet del. Arae ashta aciret devern."
What? How did I-- Elixir's thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open.
A bluish-teal mare stared back at him.
"I-- What-- How--" he stammered.
Elixir was never given the chance to formulate an actually coherent sentence, as the mare before him lashed out a hoof, knocking him out cold.
+ + +
Ohhh...
Elixir rubbed his head. He needed to stop winding up in pain on the floor, he felt. Far too unpleasant to become a regular activity.
He sat up, still rubbing the side of his head where he had been hit. Looking around, he was struck by a sense of déjà vu.
I really need to stop finding myself in pain on the floor.
"So. One of my own has finally come back to me," a voice said from behind him.
He twisted around as fast and as well as he could sitting on the floor, and the spin made his head ache even more. He looked into the darkness.
"Do you know, Elixir, why the world is the way it is?"
"I-- Um-- ... Okay, what?" he said, managing to stand.
"You heard me," the voice said, as a massive white figure stepped into the light. Elixir glanced around suddenly again, struck by a sudden confusion as to where exactly the light in the room was coming from. As best he could tell, the answer was nowhere.
"Many things come from nowhere," the white pony said--but was she a pony? She was so much bigger than Elixir...
"I have always enjoyed the title of pony, technical inaccuracies aside," the white...pony said. "Now I ask you one last time, Elixir--why is the world the way it is?"
"I... I don't know," he said simply. "And what do you mean? That's a very broad question."
"The answer I'm looking for is the answer to the question of why you were surprised by my door. Why you didn't know what the moss covering it was. And why you could read the words upon it."
"...oh," Elixir said.
"I am going to tell you," the white pony said. "And please, call me Celestia."
Celestia...
"That means something to you. Good."
"Now, Elixir. There is a very easy way to summarize the answer to the question I've posed you, so I'll take it. We need to get you home.
"A long, very, very long time ago, I made three mistakes. The first of which was entrusting your sovereign with the knowledge of black magic."
(<<-->>)
...Sovereign?
"You know her name. I needn't utter it here.
"Now, the next mistake was giving that same mare, who I considered incorruptible, power equal to mine. And to be frank, it still wouldn't have become the problem it is, had I not been so foolish as to make my last mistake.
"When your sovereign began to take an interest in the corporation, that was when I made my final mistake. I thought that I was helping a student. I was investing Equestrian bits, sure, but I could trust...that mare. Surely.
"I was wrong, Elixir. It was too much, too fast. I gave her too much power. I corrupted her. And then I gave her the keys to the kingdom..." Celestia trailed off.
"That is the answer to the question. The answer to why aciret flows in the rivers instead of water. The reason why you know nothing of a plant, and have never seen the sky."
"It's my fault. But it is your burden to carry."