Stories in Stone
Lost Empire
By TDR
Losing Sleep
It was nearly always the same.
Fire, screaming, armored monsters, and death.
Those dreams were bad enough to wake her with shivers and the occasional scream, though they were nothing compared to the other dreams. The forest ablaze and the screams of the dying and fighting she could wake from, find an escape once she realized it was a dream.
The dreams of blood though, she could never escape until the end of it. There was no fire in these dreams. She was surrounded by figures who's faces she couldn't see. She could feel the warmth and love and caring from them however and the security that came from being with them. Like a family. They were rarely the same figures but the feeling was always the same.
It always ended too soon too often with a crash like thunder and it was all gone. Dark figures burst into the scene shouting things in a incomprehensible language, screaming at her protectors, her loved ones.
The intruding figures screamed again and one by one the ones she cared for were struck down and the monsters reached for her.
She ran fleeing though a place she had never been, but knew well. Her hooves carried her swiftly and surely away from the ones chasing her, but she was not fast enough. A searing pain lanced through her side and she fell, little more than a length from the safety of the woods before her.
Her eyes turned back to see the blood pouring from the wound in her back leg. Crimson liquid pouring around a barbed arrow. She turned trying to crawl towards the woods, the protection it offered when a hoof shoved her to the ground pinning her there as the monster screamed at her.
She looked up with her tear filled eyes towards the forest her eyes meeting another pair that stared back at her with horror. A figure wearing her own face gripping the leg of a cloaked form. She watched as her own visage turned away from her to vanish into the night as a heavy weight met with the back of her head and everything was made dark.
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Applebloom woke with a yelp falling out of her bed with a crash and a curse that would have made a solider blush.
She whimpered lightly rubbing her head as she slowly got to her hooves, her ears perking as she listened to see if she woke any of the others in the house. She sighs stretching a little, she really shouldn't have worried about it, she woke with nightmares so often now that even Angel Bunny usually just snorted and rolled over to go back to sleep now.
Applebloom sighs reaching over to turn on the light turning from the glare and catching a glimpse of herself in her mirror. A tall, thin wisp of a mare that took far too much after her brother in height stared back at her. A mop of red mane fell over her shoulders like a waterfall partially covering her face. She sighs sitting down and pulling the mess of hair back behind her head into a large wavy ponytail and tying it with a ribbon. It had been a while since she stopped wearing her bow, though the accessory of her youth still rested atop her dresser.
She rubs her eyes checking the clock with a curse noting it was barely after three in the morning. She knew she wasn't going to get back to sleep that night. She never did after that particular dream. Uncle Rhede had asked Princess Luna to see if she could help, evidently Princesssness or Princess-hood or however that was said, came with some sort of dream power. She had been surprised when the Princess agreed, though Luna couldn't find anything. She did not see any nightmares or even find evidence that Applebloom was dreaming at all.
Twilight and some other smart ponies looked into it but none of them came up with anything and she had given up hope of having a normal nights sleep after a few years of it and just choked it up to another disaster in her life.
She had graduated last year, the only pony in her class, heck the only pony ever, anyone had ever heard of that didn't have a cutie mark by that time of her life.
She moved silently down the hall, she had no worries that she would wake up Big Mac or Rainbow Dash. But Applejack was always a light sleeper, Fluttershy was even worse and Angel Bunny could hear an apple fall on the other side of the orchard. Granted she was more concerned with the three little little ponies Applejack and Fluttershy had adopted when Fluttershy finally moved in with her sister.
Applebloom pauses looking back in the house her ears perked for any sounds before she pushes open the front door.
Wynona lifts her head looking up at the mare with a soft wag of her tail before she rested her head back on her paws to doze off again.
The cool air hit her like a splash of water as she stepped outside trotting out the door careful not to let it bang closed as she headed out towards the orchard.
She had done everything she could think of, every thing her friends could think of to try and gain her cutie mark. Including a few things that her family was not pleased about in the slightest. The Cutie Mark Crusaders exploits had become legendary in New Canterlot, though they had gotten even worse after Scootaloo gained her mark.
The trio had done a number of things that made the Gabby Gum incident seem like forgetting to put out a fork at dinner. Still her family and friends had been accepting of nearly all of it. At least until they had found her mothers old journals and tried out something they found there.
Applejack, Granny and Big Mac all practically lost it when they found out that the tree of them had tried it out.
Scootaloo and Sweetiebelle couldn't get any of what they read to work. Applebloom however, well when a eleven year old filly rips a stump out by the roots by herself ponies take notice.
She was grounded for a couple of months and forced to take some long boring training class with some angry crystal pony. And that was after Twilight refused to wipe her memory like Applejack wanted.
Unlike Big Mac she could turn it on and off as she wanted though it left her exhausted that was evidently what was supposed to happen according to Major Rose. Still it wasn't long after all that, that the nightmares started. So grounded, stuck in more classes, having nightmares, and forced to put up with her sister's ' I told you something bad would happen' smug look.
All that and she still never got her Dragon magic user cutie mark.
Still that was years ago and forgiven if not forgotten. The only thing else that came of it was the one time she hit Diamond Tira so hard she was held back a grade.
Still, if any one deserved to be in traction it was DT. She had missed so many classes while she was injured that she couldn't pass the classes and had to repeat them. Silver Spoon was still in her class but without Diamond Tiara around Silver Spoon was almost an alright pony.
Pip and his brother had thanked her for it even if every one else was mad at her. He and Brushstroke had been planning to do something to her the moment they found that Tiara had been picking on Berry Ice for not only being orphaned but being mute and anything else she could think of. Applebloom had over heard and simply wanted to shove DT away from the crying filly, but had wound up hitting her hard enough to send her though a few lockers and at least half the school house. Her training sessions on control had been doubled after that.
Applebloom paused at the edge of the orchard her ears perking as she heard something. She blinks lifting her head up trying to identify it. It sounded like... Singing?
“Thin hung the web like a trap in a cage,
The fox lay asleep in his lair.
Fang's frantic paws told the tale of his sin,
Far off the chase shrieked revenge.”
She couldn't identify the song ,but it sounded like many voices were chanting the tune from the edge of the grove.
“Outcast he trespassed where no wolf may tread,
The last sacred haunt of the dead.
He learnt of a truth which only one wolf may know,
The scepter and crown of a king.”
She paused at the fence next to the road looking across the field to the edge of the EverFree forest beyond.
“Howling for blood, One-eye leads on the pack,
Plunging through forest and snowstorm.”
She turned her gaze towards New Canterlot in the distance. Though the city was awash with lights she didn't think the singing was coming from there. It sounded like it was coming from the Everfree forest itself.
“Steep rose the ridge, ghostly peaks climbed the sky,
Fang sped through jungles of ice.
Hard on his tail, One-eye drew from the pack -
An old hero conquered by none.”
The chant remained steady though the pitch constantly changed and shifted. She turned her gaze up to the silvery moon above and sighed wondering if she had finally gone crazy.
“Steep, far too steep, grew the pathway ahead,
Descent was the only escape.
A wolf never flees in the face of his foe,
Fang knew the price he would pay -
One-eye stood before him
With the crown upon his head,
Scepter raised to deal the deadly blow.”
Her ears perk at the sound of shuffling behind her and she glances back to see a bleary eyed Fluttershy trotting towards her with smile, an ornery white rabbit curled up on the pegasus' back pretending he had nothing to do with this, though he was likely the one who woke Fluttershy when Applebloom went out.
“Fang, son of Great Fang, the traitor we seek,
The laws of the brethren say this:
That only the king sees the crown of the gods,
And he, the usurper, must die.
Snarling he tore at the throat of his foe,
But Fang fought the hero in vain.
Dawn saw the white mountain tinted with red -
Never would the crown leave again.”
“Are you alright Applebloom?” Fluttershy asks yawning.
“Ah guess so.”
“Nightmare again?”
“Yeah... Fluttershy do ya hear anything out here?”
The yellow pegasus blinks perking her ears up to listen as the last strains of the song fade.
“One-eye his the crown and with laurels on his head
Returned amongst the tribe and dwelt in peace.”
“Umm I do hear something. “
“You do?”
“Yes I think it's timber wolves howling. Oh my, I've never heard them carry on like that before.”
Applebloom drops her head smacking it against the fence rail.
“Oh I’m sorry .. was it something else you were hearing?”
“Ah coulda sworn there was singing........... wait did yah say timber wolves were howling?”
“Why yes, I used to hear them occasionally from my cottage, but I never heard them howl like that. …. Applebloom where are you going?”
The young mare turns suddenly nearly falling as she looks back at the pegasus her hooves bouncing and she prances in place excitedly the dream and the song forgotten.
“Tha timber wolves are howling, that means tha Zappapples are coming, ah gotta get every pony up we got work tah do.” Applebloom hollers back as she turns to rush off again.
Fluttershy blinks watching the young mare run off shouting at the top of her lungs and a number of lights start to cut on in the farm house. The pegasus sighs reaching back to pet the sleeping bunny with her wing.
“Oh dear, at least she's not going off to do any crusading this time.”