Darkness. That was the first thing Amaterasu saw when she awakened from her slumber, languidly climbing out of bed and rubbing her eyes with her hooves. She looked the entire room over, only to see ominous shadows lurking in every corner. She peered out of a nearby window and was met with an ugly sky; blankets of clouds obscuring every ray of sunshine. Amaterasu felt odd, almost as if the sun itself had completely disappeared. She turned her gaze away from the window and saw that the door leading downstairs was open. Feeling adventurous with a hint of trepidation she moved her way towards the door.
“Fluttershy!” she called out, standing at the top of the stairs. No one returned her voice. No lights were on downstairs. There was nothing. Amaterasu cautiously walked down the stairs, noting the absence of life in the cabin. Even Fluttershy’s animals were lost in the abyss of silence. She reached the bottom of the stairs and was engulfed in a endless void. Her coat managed to shine weakly through the darkness, slightly illuminating the room. She trotted around the room, looking for signs of life. The cabin was completely empty.
“This is odd, where is everybody?” Amaterasu asked herself. She turned towards the door. It strangely beckoned her towards it, bewitching her very being. Amaterasu opened the door and looked outside. It was raining. Amaterasu was puzzled, when she looked out of the window upstairs it was not raining. She stepped out of the cabin, her hooves meeting the icy cold ground. She quickly scanned her surroundings, seeing absolutely nothing. Amaterasu did spot nearby trees. They were missing their leaves, leaving behind an angry pack of inanimate monsters.
“This is ridiculous, I must be losing my sanity”, Amaterasu said, putting a hoof to her head in confusion. She decided to head over to Ponyville to see if this mess could be sorted out. She trotted along the main path towards Ponyville, recalling every memory of her with Fluttershy to be certain she was heading in the right direction. She looked up at the sky once again. All she saw was an ocean of clouds, raining upon her a solitary storm.
There was no comfort. There was no sky. There was no light. There was no hope. Is this what it feels like to be alone? Amaterasu pressed on to Ponyville; her mind yearning to discover what is amiss. Amaterasu began to near Ponyville when the storm began to escalate, buffeting her with needle shaped raindrops. She ran with all the speed she could muster, using Divine Retribution as an improvised umbrella.
The rain fell harder and harder as Amaterasu ran faster and faster. Clearly something did not want her to find out what was going on. When Amaterasu finally reached Ponyville, she stopped dead in her tracks.
There was no Ponyville.
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Baffled beyond belief, Amaterasu trotted to where Ponyville was supposed to be. Amaterasu kicked her hoof at the ground, exciting the gravel and dirt into the air. Feeling her composure quickly diminishing, Amaterasu walked around frantically.
“What’s going on here? I’m sure this is where Ponyville lies!” Quickly scanning her surroundings, only one structure remained eerily untouched. Twilight’s house. Like a moth to a flame she curiously trotted towards the monumental library. Amaterasu neared the towering tree when she spotted something familiar. On the door, tacked down with a plumed arrow, lay a note. Upon closer inspection, it was no note. It was the exact same parchment Amaterasu had written on for Fluttershy. She took the parchment, threw it down on the ground, and opened it.
The parchment was old, stained, and dusty on the inside. Amaterasu spotted her signature in the middle of the parchment, untouched from the filth. She looked at the parchment all over when she saw something unnerving. Scribbled next to her signature in nearly illegible handwriting were the words “unfinished business.” It was still dripping with ink. Amaterasu looked up from the parchment, frozen in fear.
“It’s merely a coincidence, Amaterasu. Don’t let something as preposterous as that get to you.” She stomped on the parchment and stepped into Twilight’s house. The front entrance groaned in pain as Amaterasu slowly opened the door. The library was decimated beyond recognition. Multiple parts of the room had large burns all over the walls and shelves. Shadows danced through the darkness, mocking her rapidly fading sanity. Several times Amaterasu felt breathing on the back of her neck and when she would turn around to find out who was breathing on her, only darkness was there. The wind howled eerily in the distance; screaming in anger and hatred at Amaterasu’s presence. She oddly felt that she was not welcome here.
There were strange symbols all over the room, drawn in a familiar crimson liquid. Amaterasu’s coat glowing in the dark seemed ghostly, even to her. She moved through the dark calling out.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” She perked her ears, listening for any replies. All she heard was her own voice repeated back at her. She pushed on, determined to find someone in this somber town. She turned her head and saw 8 words, arranged in a circular pattern. She trotted up to it and read each word in a clockwise motion to herself.
“Ka, tsuchi, doku, hikari, kaminari, mizu, kaze, yami.”
She stepped back in fear when her hoof suddenly crunched the remains of what appeared to be several books. She squealed and looked down. The smell of ash assaulted her nose, making her eyes water. She rubbed her eyes clean of tears when a voice in the distance suddenly began singing, catching Amaterasu’s full attention.
“Hello? Who is there? I demand you show yourself immediately!” Amaterasu commanded through the boundless dark. The voice stopped singing abruptly, almost as if contemplating whether to show itself or not. Seconds seemed like hours when the voice began singing again, ominously harmonizing with its own echoes.
“Time flows, nobody knows, the years go by. Where we go, alone from here”
Amaterasu slowly approached the source of the voice, wielding Divine Retribution. The reflector burned with despair.
“Night falls, strange-colored walls. My eyes deceive, what is wrong with me?”
Closer and closer Amaterasu neared the source of the singing. The voice suddenly stopped when Amaterasu moved in front of the doorway from which the voice was coming from. With her reflector close, she edged herself into the room when a silhouette moving through the darkness caught her eye. It was small and canine shaped.
“Chibiterasu?! Is that you my child?” Amaterasu asked the shadow. The shadow hunched over in discovery and stared at Amaterasu. Amaterasu stared back at the shadow, unable to make out any features besides its shape. Before she could think, the shadow suddenly dashed past her and out the doorway she came through. Amaterasu saw some white on the figure as it ran by.
“Wait! Please stop!” It continued to run. Amaterasu ran after the shadow, running faster than she had as a pony and a wolf. The shadow ran out of the house, intending to get away from Amaterasu for mysterious reasons. Amaterasu looked back as Twilight’s house shrunk in size, never to be seen again. The voice that she had heard earlier continued its lingering song, plaguing her mind with haunting images.
“Deep in the night you think everything’s right, tell it to yourself.
Say it’s just a nightmare.
Something is telling you nothing can change where you are again”
Fog began rolling in around Amaterasu, obscuring the view of her son that she wanted to desperately hold forever and never let go.
“Why should it matter, your dreams of a child? Innocence is gone.
Only fear to play with.
Faces are changing, but nothing is changing the pain, too late”
The storm picked up in intensity; lightening flashing through the grey sky.
“Two steps I take getting closer and closer
And one more breath I take sends me further back”
Amaterasu was beginning to lose her son. She picked up speed, throwing all of her weight forward.
“Over and over it calls to your soul, say it isn’t so.
Emptiness surrounds you.
No one can help if the angels refuse to come here, who’s there?”
She could hear her son calling out to her, begging for his mother to fill the void of loneliness.
“Cold-faded photos, they lay by your side, something in my room.
Never mind blue reason.
Visions are lying and reasons just live to survive, this time”
Amaterasu’s mind filled with images of her and her son, growing up together and learning together. She began to tear up.
“The cold. The light. The fear returning.
It’s not the eyes you feel that’s chilling you”
Instantly Amaterasu lost the desire to continue on. She fell flat on the ground with a splash of water. Lying on her back, Amaterasu looked up at the sky; dead and withering away into nothing. The figure Amaterasu was chasing entered her sight, abhorring her vision. The figure was Chibiterasu but it was missing its eyes. It barred its teeth at Amaterasu. They were jagged and demonic. Blood dripped from its mouth; droplets hitting Amaterasu several times in the face. A familiar voice filled Amaterasu’s mind. Orochi.
“What is wrong oh so powerful goddesses? Paralyzed with fear to see me again? I’ve waited for this moment for countless years. And I shall only make it more pleasurable for me.”
With that said, from her peripheral vision, additional figures were joining the party. A green toxic smoke made her cough violently. She could hear a sword clinking against metal. A large beast snorted loudly behind her. It was carrying two large blades. To her left she could see piercing red eyes staring at her in hatred. There were 9 ominous figures directly above it. To her right she could see a large figure breaking through the forset and spinning webs. Directly above her in the sky were two mechanical owls. They mocked her lacking of a partner.
“No, no, I beg you, no!!!!” Amaterasu pleaded. Each of the figures huddled around Amaterasu and looked down at her laughing. Chibiterasu broke through the crowd and clamped his scissor like jaws down on her rear leg in a devastating vice grip. Blood spewed everywhere as Amaterasu neighed in pain; crying in agony that this demented version of her son would harm her. She looked upwards through her blurred and watery vision and saw one of the mechanical owls thrusting its razor sharp cane towards her chest. She closed her eyes and waited for the final blow.
It never came.
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Amaterasu opened her eyes and looked upward once again. She was greeted with the familiar face of the moon. The figures that were tormenting Amaterasu had disappeared, her wound on her leg had healed, and she had regained her energy. Something or someone saved her life.
Timidly, Amaterasu spoke, “Yumigami? Was this your doing?” Her question was answered by an unfamiliar voice.
“No Amaterasu, this was my doing” Amaterasu turned her head towards the source of the voice and saw a blue alicorn slightly smaller than her. Her wings were open in embrace; shining the grace of the moon upon her. She was wearing a tiara.
“My word! What happened here? Was that hideous thing my son?! Were those rea-“ The small alicorn put her hoof to Amaterasu’s mouth.
“Calm yourself” she said smiling, “You’re alright now”
“What is going on?”
“You’re dreaming, Amaterasu”
“I’m……. dreaming?”
“Yes. Something evil and wicked was tormenting you in your sleep. I watch the dreams of everypony in Equestria, even the ones who are not from here. Whatever it was, I’m the only thing that is holding it back from you.”
“I-I cannot thank you enough…er, may I ask your title?”
“My name? No need to worry about that now. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Amaterasu’s savior began to disappear; particles of magic emanating from her body. Amaterasu yelled to her, “Wait! You claim to see the dreams of beings not from here! Can you please tell me if my son is doing O.K.?”
“Chibiterasu? He dreams about you every night, Amaterasu….”
With that said, the mysterious alicorn disappeared, making the sky above Amaterasu shine brilliantly with the light of thousands of stars. For the rest of the night Amaterasu slept seamlessly under the watchful eye of her fateful guardian.
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The sky of the Celestial Plains remained crimson ever since Amaterasu disappeared. Every day, Chibiterasu would return to where he saw his mother enter the portal and stare into the sky, begging for her back. He would howl the lullaby his mother howled for him when he was just a little pup. He still remembered it, note for note. He was about to howl it when a small voice interrupted him.
“Chibi! I came as soon as I heard! Is Furball really gone?” Chibiterasu looked over his shoulder and simply nodded; a tear falling to the ground.
“I can’t believe it…. Ammy is really…. Gone… Well Chibi, Gekigami told me to come get you for an important meeting that even you have to attend.”
Chibiterasu hesitated just as Amaterasu would but eventually got up and proceeded to the meeting room. Where the tear had landed, a beautiful bed of flowers had grown.
They were all in the spot where Amaterasu had first howled the lullaby to Chibiterasu.