//------------------------------// // "Legacy" Day 3 // Story: "Legacy" // by Novel Idea //------------------------------// Day 3 It’s always Sunny in Calimare I stirred slowly, the sleep lifting from my body much like the early morning frost upon the grass would as the sun reached ever higher in the sky. I opened my dark, black eyes. The coal like pupils lined in blood trimmed vessels. Hooves lifting from the warm floor I rubbed the sleep and nausea from my eyes, trying to bring the world to focus. Thankfully, though the drink may have taken me, I remain the master of my own domain. Coal’s turned to Luna, she had fallen asleep in the center of the room, her large Alicorn wings wrapped around herself much like a blanket. Stirring slightly the blue coated goddess opened one tired and weary eye to me. It was a questioning stare and I offered it no response, choosing to spread my forelegs and stretch every kink along my vertebrae. She gave a deep throated whiny and stretched out on the floor rolling away from me. It was understandable, I had barged into a lady’s room during the middle of the night and demanded she inform me of her emotional state when she had been imprisoned on the moon for a millennia… at least in my head that made sense. I’m sure looking in on the situation a prisoner being interrupted by the warden would not be too bizarre. She was my captive and I her master…Laughing inwardly I push that thought from my mind. I was no sadist... last night had been something different. The urge to talk to her had come from the alcohol, I’m sure…no, maybe it was from my lack of pony contact… How long had it been since I lived with another pony…not that this situation was ideal. I pondered this thought eyes on her, taking in her form. It had been so many long years since I had been this close to another pony…never a mare. Not that I’m no into that kind of thing, or that it was wrong, just spending time with a pony mare or stallion had never really been the option for me. Contact with myself and other ponies had always been…an inconvenience…since back then at least. Why…why did back then come to mind now, I pondered leaning back against the wall pulling on my arms. It had been what…twenty years, thirty? Those old faces coming to mind having been so lost… I looked at Luna for a long moment her wings twitching, she was awake and could feel my eyes on her back. I had an urge, to talk to her…to make her understand. Why? This ‘Princess’ was a means to an end, a legacy to be had. I had stolen the moon, so why did I feel the urge to converse…to open up. Open up… I blinked hard and laughed, audibly for Luna raised her head and looked at me. The fear from the last two days had seemingly left her, good. She knew I had no intentions of hurting her or damaging her unless she forced my hand. This as a good lesson. I couldn’t stop a coltish grin at how quickly she had learned that lesson. Deeply I hated myself for these trains of thoughts, this prisoner of mine attacking me on a level I was not use to defending without the awareness of her vicious assault. It as my voice that broke that cold chilling silence first. “I was born in Calimare.” I said titling my head to the side, why did I want to talk…this, this tale was not for her ears. Anypony’s ears for that matter. But I craved to tell her, I could feel my heart flutter against my aged chest as if I was teasing it with a key. Forcing my body to be relaxed I spoke again the once silk tone of my voice returned now that my drunken husk had been absolved. “Well, maybe born there. I don’t really know to be honest.” My eyes drifted to the morning sun pouring in from the magical window. “I don’t remember much before waking up in that dumpster…Rather lucky that I had waken up then I assume, Celestia knows when they may have taken it away and crushed my body in it…” “No name… no idea where I was, what I was doing… it was a miracle that I could survive the first day.” I said rolling my hoof along the ground distracted by it. “I know you don’t know what it’s like in that city…and I’m sure your Sister does not. Do you know how many newborns die in Calimare each day? Upwards of fifty…fifty new foals brought into this world only to die. I wonder if you know how many survive…?” I mused looking at her, her face was pained. A monarch seeing a part of her people and world that she did not want to see… a world that she had never had to see. Well I had to see it…I had to live it. “One. On a good day when all the celestial bodies align… one out of fifty children survive.” I laughed hard not angrily…bitterly not at the situation, at myself. “I hit the fucking jackpot.” “I wasn’t entirely alone…after a while, I suppose. After time all us vermant and survivors collect in small groups. We’d split the city you know…Like we were kings.” I laughed and lifted a hoof to my hair pulling it away from my eyes. “Kings…they ruled the city, the goal and the end…but I digress. Where was I…the children… We got together to form surrogate families, of thieves and cut-saddles.” I was interrupted for a moment by a laugh from Luna and I looked at her my eyes taking her in. “Oh we stole Princess, money, goods. Life.” the smile faded from her lips, I was common. Common was survival, I would not allow myself to be mocked for being beneath Royalty. “We stole to survive, to live. Many of us died…many faces without names…Ha!” I laughed sharply, laced with bitterness. “Most of us before we found our cutie marks if you’d believe it. Not many people now adays can imagine the funerals held by little fillies and colts for their brothers and sister’s who died simply because they were not strong enough…fast enough…smart enough….” “The Pegasi had it the best, begrudgingly. In that hot, blazing desert where the only solice from the sun was a cold and biting night. They were the ones who could flee the easiest…most of them at least. Then the earth ponies, they controlled the middle class of us rugged survivors. Hard to think of a creature so unwilling to die when there was nothing left to live for…” Again my eyes drifted to the upper corner of the room into the light. “Then the unicorns, ponies like me. Hard to imagine, I know.” I scoffed, waving a hoof at her. “In your society the unicorns are a sign of power and nobility. Well on those streets it meant weakness and inevitable death. There was no way for us to harness our magic…to learn how to wield it properly. Assuming it didn’t go wild…the horror’s I’d heard of the one’s who went wild….” “There was another unicorn in our family, only one. They were often abandoned by the groups. A wild magic eruption could kill far more then just the caster… The screams she cried the night she died still keep me up at night.” I shivered, spine tingling with the pain. “There really wasn’t enough left of her for the traditional burial at sea…” I stopped and wiped a tear from my eye…what was wrong with me! I pleaded with my mind and heart to stop talking. It hurt, it hurt so much. Every nightmare I had ever lived for being replayed again and again. I could feel my chest heaving as if it had no greater desire then self-destruction. Stop…its all I wanted to do…stop, but the pain wouldn’t let me. Like pulling off a magical-aid strip, quick and painful in one sharp pull. “You know that’s how I got my name? We named each other, I supposed it helped us cement what we had…helped us have something worth fighting for. Dying for. Ha, this stallion before you was named by a Pegasus and Earth pony from the streets… no one would think that, looking at me would they. A venerable member of society and all that.” “Her name was Clips…” I said rolling my shoulders, eyes lost on that once image. I could see here there in the room, my ghosts come to haunt me. I could see her dirty orange and yellow mane on a sand brown coat… her small seeming misshapen wings…body beaten by the desert, but will not crushed. A will to survive. “She was the first one I named you know…clever isn’t it? Her wings had been clipped at birth…to help keep the population down.” I scoffed harshly at the image of Clips moving around, little wings twitching. “I guess its another way I was lucky, my mother had something like a heart.” I raised a hoof up and caressed the filthy and ruined mane of the hallucination before me.. My eyes lost on her image. “Clips was the first one in our family to die after I joined.” I could feel the pain in my heart, the twitch. I had never spoken of clips. “Then Ruby-max…he was one of the strongest Earth Ponies running those mean streets…He was caught in the street war with the guilds…as did everyone else…” I paused for a long moment…that war…I could feel the heat of it’s flames swirling around, flames of danger. Suppress, neglect, fight the flames. “I had gotten lucky once…”I whispered now my limbs shaking a little at the raging flames underneath. “I had managed to get my hand on some silk…nothing too unique or impressive that I could be signalled out for it…to steal something unique was a taboo of the street. If it was traceable it was a risk. Well the silk I fashioned into a cloak for protection from the sun… Not surprising they named me Silk is it? A very basic view of things I suppose, but then again I was one of the only ones alive with an education and the ability to talk and read properly.” I pushed my hoof through the images of Clips and now Ruby-max, the blood red earth pony with rough brown hair. His eyes of brilliant ruby haunting my own, looking to me pleadingly to go back and save the shadow of that day from ever happening. “The guilds…you weren’t here for their rule I suppose, and Celestia was too busy to care about a seedy port city off in a harsh and vicious desert.” I whispered…I couldn’t tell how quietly I was talking, I couldn’t see the breaking monarch. Her sky sea blue eyes filled with tears, moving closer to hear me better, all I saw was the sun on that deadly desert. “They were the real kings…murderers, thieves, assassins…traders.” I laughed a little remembering the Desert Kings and their rule. “They were the real crime…we children were survivors…we stole what we had to survive or attempt to buy shelter… They stole what they did for the power. Power was something only the newest of foals wanted. Money was power…power was respect. To those poor misguided foals. Power is nothing but fear.” “The young ones never could understand that concept.” I chuckled eyes distant seeing faces I hadn’t seen in decades, faces of ghosts long dead. “We rob from the kings…kill the kings…to become the king. But then what happens? We rule as immortals? No…no we become the targets of those who had the same situation like us.” I whispered running a hoof through my mane. “I knew but look at me…a King!” I scoffed those faces staring back at me, disgusted. “The guild… they were the King’s beyond the king. Untouchables. We could hit the traders… and the merchants. Not the guilds, they were beyond all protection. Till that day.” I said the flames blurring across my sight again, this time…and I don’t know why…but I did not shy away. Maybe deep down within my essence I realized that I had been haunted and repressing horrors that nopony should ever have…and this Princess, this Goddess being the first person to be near me…to stay with me. To be someone I could tear down the walls around my heart and mind. “The war was brutal…One guild killed a king of another, a third attacked the first transgressor while a Fourth in alliance with the first slaughtered the third. A fire…they used fire. In the desert…insult to injury really.” I said, voice uncontrolled…I was unaware of my pitch at this point but still that urgng deep inside of me, that surge demanded my continuance. “I wonder if there was ever a full tally of how many died…over ninety percent of the city burnt to the ground that night…and over half the ships in the harbour. So many dead…” There was a long silence between myself and Luna…it was an awkward silence. Inside of me was a monster begging to be let loose, to be freed of its emotional prison. It howled and tore its vicious path around inside my mind and heart. I saw Ruby-Max again… as I saw him last, that young colt engulfed in flames and for the first time in over forty years I felt the sickening burn of tears down my cheek. “We couldn’t save him you know…Ruby-Max was the first of us to fall that night. We tried to get him to the water…as fast as we could, but all it did was burn us quicker. Nothing we could do would help…he screamed…you know ?!” my voice cracked harshly. “He screamed louder then anypony should ever scream, he was alive when we threw him into the sea… how quickly he died after that I can only guess for that’s when oil carrying ships where met with the blaze. The explosion was devastating…those who weren’t incinerated by the sun like heat were showered with glass and splinters from the nearby houses. We were down to ten then…just ten ponies left from our family of thirty. The explosion hit us so hard we almost forgot where we were. “But then the screams…those screams. I wonder how many ponies can say they’ve listened to a city burn alive…those scream!” I gripped my hair violently, my body was shaking and the tears were flowing. I could taste the acrid vomit at t he back of my throat but I swallowed an carried on. For them…always for them. “We tried to flee, tried to run…Another one of us was trampled by the herd… Which dissolved moments later when an apothecary shop went ablaze, the gases filled the air and distorted our vision. Our lungs weakened and filled with smoke already. We wanted to cry, wanted to scream but there was no air or strength in our bodies… we could only run. The next died rather aprublty, stray bullet…we don’t know where the shot came from but the Pegasus beside me dropped instantly. There was no need to pause, we had all seen ponies drop like that before. It made us run faster, faster faster faster faster…” I panted my words getting tight and sped together, my voice failing. How long had I been talking? Why was the fire of my past so hot that I could feel the smoke clog my lungs, only the tears on my fast clearing away the grime of death. “Two more fell, one from smoke.. A filly, this little Pegasus girl she was only four fell back to help and was crushed by a collapsing building…her death was quiet for once their was no scream. Half of us remained… we ran and ran trying to outrun the death. But we couldn’t see the fire through the smoke… An Earth pony, one of the oldest in our family… I remember his green olive mane and his earthly brown coat as it hit the inferno, a surging fireball erupting from the heart of the chaos… He was no more… We ran and ran and ran, the death all around us…I don’t know when the other died…I don’t know when I lost them all I know is that I ran and cried and bellowed into the night. The desert was so-so cold, so icy…” I shivered and shook violently my body gripped with the vivid memories haunting my reality. “How could this happen!? Why did this happen!? They didn’t deserve to die, not like that! Not like this!” I bellowed, Luna’s presence almost forgotten. I was lost fully then, words spilled from my mouth and my body bashed itself violently against the wall as I choked and suffocated on my own words. “Why was there so much death! Why were we born to die like this!? This can’t have been why we were born! Why did no one stop the fire! Why did no one stop the death?!” I was yelling now, my body strained beyond the point of exhaustion. Luna’s voice rang out, her tears pouring down her cheek though I saw none of it. “Stop! Stop! Thou art injuring yourself! STOP!” she tried to order through her tears at me. “WHY DID NO ONE COME!? WHY WAS NO ONE SAVED!? WHERE WERE YOU! THEY WORSHIPPED YOU! WHY DID YOU NEVER COME TO US IN OUR TIME OF NEED!? THEY DIDN’T DESRERVE TO DIE LIKE THAT! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?! WHY WERE YOU NOT THERE THE ONE TIME WHEN WE NEEDED TO BE SAVED!? WAS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK?! DID WE SEEM GREEDY TO YOU!” I ignored her desperate pleas for me to stop, my eyes blinded with tears. That voice would not reach my ears, not over the screams those violent screams. “WHY DID THEY LEAVE ONLY ME? WHY WAS I THE ONLY ONE TO SURVIVE!? WHY MUST I BEAR THE BURDEN OF THEIR LEGACY!! WHY WEREN’T YOU THERE!!!” I bellowed, my voice breaking I collapsed, broken beyond all limits. My breath was haggard and my body weak I tossed violently in the throws of my hallucinated death. Again and again my voice called out to the darkness which was encasing my very soul. Again and again my words broke into Luna’s heart as a pick through ice. “Why weren’t you there…” And so a fourth night fell, upon my weak and broken body. As the flames of Calimare ripped through my soul I looked to the same sky I had all those years ago, fleeing from the death and chaos. Up to a barren and unforgiving sky, the stars mocking my very existence. “Why weren’t you there…the one time we needed you…”