//------------------------------// // The Sounds of Ingratitude // Story: Lonely Mountains // by TadStone //------------------------------// The Sounds of Ingratitude Drums filled the air, their heavy resonance carried by strong sound waves. They were permeating through ice and stone alike, sending out a message of imminent death. For Blenda, it was the sweet sound of victory, a demonstration of power to all the clans that had refused to cooperate. For Rainbow, they were spelling her doom, a rhythmic proclamation to continue throughout her last hours. All of the north had come to attend, all who wanted to see her die. Somehow this was even worse than what was going to happen to her very soon. She was a pony of the masses, working for them, living for their applause. To think that so many ponies hated her... For trying to save their lives... She hadn't done anything wrong. She had followed the command of her princesses and her own heart. She had done nothing but help a group of renegades to retrieve a dangerous artifact before any of the other clans could. Everything had went according to plan... or it had seemed that way at least. She had passed the bordering mountains without notice, avoiding all sentries with pure speed in nearly oxygen-free altitudes. Contact with Jǫðurr had been quickly established, and a crew was dispatched with her to scour the country. Steep ridges and high peaks hampered progress to a painful crawl for all who could not fly. Unicorns and earth ponies were useless in the mountains, at least when it came down to raw speed, but the pegasi sent along with her had all been Wonderbolt material, the finest of their order. Whoever had brought the orb to the north did a good job hiding it. Either that, or it was old enough to be buried into the ground, not changing its place while forces bigger and older than Celestia had moved layers of stone and ice around it. In the end, it didn’t matter. Rainbow had found it, its evil presence working like a magnet to all attuned to harmony. They had dug it out, freeing it to relocate it to a more secure location, one greater than the unruly nature of the mountains. All the hard, selfless work. All the sleepless nights spent working to be home again as soon as possible. All the pain she had endured to help Jǫðurr. All of that, just to end up being bound to a wooden stake, limbs and wings pulled to the sides by tight ropes that had been connected to other poles to her left and right. Hadn't she been the pegasus she was, she surely would have been scared of the abyss only inches before her, a long drop onto grey and white spikes the length of multiple ponies. Should anyone happen to fall on them, they would be impaled in some kind of cruel barbecue. Coincidence or not, this place was perfect for an execution with an impressive stage and enough room to the sides for the happy families to watch. Rainbow didn’t want to die... but even more so, Rainbow didn’t want others to suffer for her death. Today, no winner could emerge out of the remains of her being. The north would suffer. Not for killing her. Not because Equestria would seek revenge... Equestria would not be part of any war anymore. The north would suffer because of the stupidity of a few who thought themselves mighty enough to wield an artifact that could not be used, disharmony chipping away the last amounts of restraint and cooperation in this dwindling and gruesome society. Wars would start, even more ponies would be killed over the orb. Foals that today would laugh about her death, would soon see themselves dead as well or alone without parents. As for her own family... her own foal. She wasn’t sure if Scootaloo could cope with such a loss. She had made preparations, but nothing could replace a mother. Not even the combination of all her friends. Rainbow closed her eyes, a few tears rolling down her muzzle, the liquid freezing on her short fur in the cold mountain air. An orange filly moved before her mental eye, jumping, running, laughing. She so wished for her daughter to be happy... “Aww... Look who is crying.” Rainbow slowly opened her eyes again, interrupting her gloomy thoughts for the harsh reality around her. She couldn’t tilt her head far enough to face the owner of the taunting voice, but she knew all too well who it was. It belonged to a mint-green unicorn mare with white hair braided to perfection and a blood-stained dagger as a cutie mark. “I can’t help but cry seeing so much ignorance and stupidity,” Rainbow spat into the canyon, lacking Blenda’s face for the moment. “Awww. I really missed that foul language of yours.” Blenda moved to Rainbow’s side, tracing a hoof over the pegasus’s snout. A matte black dagger moved through the air, a soft green glow emitting from its handle. “Too bad I promised to keep you in one piece for your poor relatives.” The foul stench of the unicorn’s breath entered Rainbow’s nostrils, causing a series of coughs from the pegasus as Blenda whispered into her ear. “But that doesn’t stop me from a little torture.” The sharp obsidian blade plunged into a cyan leg, drawing runny red blood as it carved its way through fur and flesh. Rainbow bit down, clenching her teeth in a feeble attempt not to cry out. She would not give in. She would not play her part in fulfilling this sick kind of desire. “Let’s move a little higher then, shall we?” The blade slashed Rainbow’s side, barely keeping the wound shallow enough as not to damage the intestines. But that wasn’t what forced Rainbow to cry out in pain, her scream even drowning the rhythm of the drums for the ponies standing close by. It was the cramps traveling down her whole body that took her by surprise and in unrelenting force, her limbs involuntarily thrashing against her tight restraints. “Now that is more to my liking.” Rainbow could only guess that a large, crazy smile had appeared in the unicorn’s face. She could only answer the provocation with a loud moan as her muscles returned into a less tense state. “I’ve got one more present for you.” The next cut created a deep gash directly beneath Rainbow’s left eye, hot blood running down her muzzle, dropping onto Blenda’s face and tongue. “You taste so great, Rainbow. The iron-rich taste of victory...” The unicorn’s long, pink tongue delicately wandered over the ripped facial tissue, savouring the flavour of every inch of it and only stopping just before Rainbow’s eye. Pleased with the flavour covering her taste-buds, Blenda took a step back, this time using the hilt of her knife to ram into the first wound she had created accompanied by another agonizing screech from her victim. “Today is a day of victory!” Blenda’s voice travelled across the mountains, amplified by her own magic and the natural power of her lungs. Her words were met by cheers erupting from the crowds, the stomps of a thousand hooves mixing with the pulse of the drums. The unicorn stood still for a few moments, eyes closed and an expression of ecstasy marking her features. She was savouring all the voices washing over her before finally silencing them again by holding up her dripping dagger. “Today, we fight back against the torturous interference of other nations that have no right to control us. They want to control us. They want to reform us to follow their precious poshy princesses. But today, we refuse. Today, we tell them that Yggdrasil is the only supreme being we need. We will send out a message that could not be clearer in its meaning. Today, we send out a message of death!” The knife floated over to Rainbow one more time, painting three interlocked triangles in crimson red onto the cyan fur in a well-trained motion. “Rainbow Dash,” Blenda boomed again. “I hereby sentence you to death, executed by my own hooves. You have been marked with the Valknut. You have been marked to die.“ A roar went through the masses, unorganized chants soon synchronizing to the rhythm of the drums, merging into a canon consisting of no more than one word and a thousand voices. Rainbow didn’t know much about the old language, but even she recognized what it was and what it meant: andlát; They were shouting for her death. New tears emerged from her eyes, burning in her wounds, freezing like before. Now that the end seemed near, all she could think of was Scootaloo. The pain she would cause her little filly. “I love you Scootaloo,” Rainbow whispered to herself, mentally looking into the big purple eyes of her daughter. “I am so sorry.” She didn’t see nor feel the blunt club ending her last thoughts.