Guided through the darkness by her hornlight and the lilac radiance of Ultra Violet, Persei tread through the ancient forest. All conversation had ceased long ago, and her sense of continuity was completely lost. It seemed as if time stood still in the quiet of the forest.
Persei felt the silent stillness seeping into her marrow, a slow poison that was driving her mad. She would have engaged Violet in even the most frivolous talk, but she had told Persei to be quiet in this section of the forest.
Persei looked at the eerie surrounding her. The leaves on the twisted, gnarly willow trees looked gray and lifeless. The dark brown dirt beneath her hooves seemed spongy and made a sucking sound every time she stepped in it. The air was heavy with moisture, and had the scent of death and decay. A low fog clung to the ground, concealing the intricate network of ensnaring roots.
As time dragged on, the fog grew thicker. It was becoming difficult to see. She felt like she was choking in the mist’s vapors. Persei looked up at Mother’s body floating in the air in the lilac aura of Violet’s magic. She appeared to be peaceful in her coma.
The worry gnawing at the back of Persei’s mind finally convinced her to speak. “Violet, I….”
Violet flipped around and put a hoof up to her muzzle. “Shhh….” she hissed in a low urgency.
Why? Why did she have to be so quiet? She opened her mouth again, and the fog entered her mouth and filled it with the taste of rot. She coughed, and Violet stared at her with horror. “What?” Persei asked.
“I said quiet!” Violet hissed.
Immediately, there was a wailing sound from somewhere in the thick, white fog. It was a low and mournful sound of unfathomable grief. Violet looked around, her eyes wide. Persei had frozen in her spot, listening quietly.
The sound faded, but both mares remained in their rigid poses. Violet whispered into her ear. “This part of the forest is haunted. There was a great massacre here during the climax of Nightmare Moon’s genocide. Stay quiet. We don’t want them hearing us.”
Persei nodded, and Violet looked around warily before continuing on her path. As she trotted, she could swear that she heard whispers from within the fog.
Persei listening closely, trying to piece out what they were saying, but there were too many voices speaking at once. What had happened here?
Mother groaned loudly, breaking her out of her thoughts. Violet immediately dropped her to the ground, and Persei rushed beside her. Mother’s lips were turning blue, and Violet grunted. “She’s hypoxic.”
Mother wasn’t getting enough air. She was going into cardiac arrest. Persei put her hooves on her breastbone and began pumping. Her CPR failed to work, and Mother’s gasps became more dramatic and drawn out. Violet pushed Persei aside, and her horn began to spark with electrical current. “Clear,” she whispered.
Violet touched her horn to Mother’s chest, and the current jolted her. Violet pressed her ear against her chest to check her pulse. She raised her head up and began charging her horn again. “Clear,” she whispered.
Mother was jolted up again, but this time her gasps had ceased entirely. Tears streamed from Persei’s eyes. Violet was pressing her ear to her chest again, and began charging her horn again. But the futility became increasingly apparent with every passing moment Mother couldn’t breathe.
Violet lowered her horn again, a last attempt to shock her mother’s heart into beating again. This time, the burst of electricity singed her beige pelt, but nothing happened. Mother lay unnaturally still.
Persei began to cry. She tried to stifle her sobs, but her attempts to do so made them even louder. She wrapped her hooves around her mother’s corpse, hugging her. “Mother, no…” she moaned. “No, no, no….”
Persei nuzzled the tuft of her on chest, right against her mother’s heart. Violet stood by Persei as she mourned.
Why? Why? Nightmare had taken away everything she loved: her home, her family, everything. Persei would never see her mother again. She might not even see Cepheus or any of the other villagers again.
Here she was in the place where Nightmare Moon massacred countless other Dayborns. It seemed a fitting place for another one to die here. Persei was so absorbed in her grief that she didn’t hear the sounds of the struggle behind her.
Persei hugged her mother tightly, feeling the fading warmth of her body. She would be completely cold soon. “I love you, Mother,” she whispered. Persei stood up with a grim resolve, trying to not think of anything.
She pounded the earth with her magic, digging a hole. Dirt sprayed everywhere as she put her full mind and focus into her task. Eventually, a large enough grave had been dug. Persei wiped the perspiration of her brow and picked Mother up, and gently slid her into the hole.
Tears blurred her vision, and she felt like collapsing. Mother looked so at peace as she lay there in the hole. Her face was pale, her hooves folded across her chest, and her dark hair rustled about in an elegant way. She was still beautiful, even in death. “Goodbye, Mother. I’ll…I’ll never forget you.”
Persei covered her corpse with dirt, and soon, the hole was filled and only a mound of dirt marked her burial site. Persei looked around for some stick or stone she could craft into a tombstone, but she noticed that she was alone. Persei stared at where she had last seen the other unicorn, slowly turning around. “Violet?” she softly called out.
She was gone. Vanished.
Concern for her own safety began to take precedence over her grief, and with one last look at her mother’s grave, she set off in search of Violet. Where could she have possibly gone?
Persei hadn’t even noticed when she had left. She trotted through the fog, her horn glowing with an orange light. She began to hear whispers. “We all died here….” a mare’s voice hissed.
Persei began to gallop, fear driving her to move faster. “Nightmare Moon knew we would try to flee through here….” a stallion’s voice muttered solemnly.
Ghosts? Persei thought. She was galloping full speed now, and she tripped over the skeleton of a pony. She tumbled on the ground, her foot had caught the pony’s skull and it fell on top of her when she landed on her back. She stared into the skull’s empty eye sockets, and with a frightened gasp, she knocked it off.
Persei leapt up to her feet again, but this time as she galloped, she felt half buried bones underneath her hooves. She fought through the thick brush, a tree branch fell before her, and she screamed. The leaves rustled in a sudden breeze, and she could hear the sound of hundreds of ponies gasping for breath and screaming for help. “THE LEAVES WERE SLATHERED IN POISON!” the voices screamed.
“Ahhh!” she screamed. The pale visages of the ponies whom Nightmare Moon had poisoned rushed past her as she galloped.
“We all suffocated!” the voices shouted in a choked gasp. “No matter how much we breathed, the poison was in our blood, choking us….”
Persei charged through a bush, her hornlight flickering from the exertion. She gasped for breath, and she realized that she was choking. She filled her lungs with air, but it was futile. The poison coursing through her was preventing her blood from picking up the oxygen. She was dying.
Persei screamed, growing dizzy. She slammed into a tree and collapsed, desperately trying to get some air. She blinked, and all the faces of all the suffocated ponies appeared in front of her. Their eyes were wild looking, their faces pale, and their lips were blue. “Join us…” they whispered to her.
Persei felt herself growing faint, but she couldn’t give up. Not with so much injustice in this world that had yet to be rectified.
What had these ponies done to deserve such a fate? Anger filled her, igniting her heart. “Curse you, Nightmare Moon! Your cruelty will be repaid to you tenfold!”
She struggled back to her feet. She wasn’t going to die here. Persei would avenge the deaths of these ponies, the destruction of her village, Mother’s demise…All the lives Nightmare Moon had taken.
Suddenly, it felt as if she could breathe again. Invigorated by the air, Persei charged through the dark fog and saw Ultra Violet standing before a tree. “There you are!” she shouted, anger still in her voice.
Violet smiled in relief. “I was looking for you!”
“The ghosts,” Persei said, rushing up to her. “They were talking to me.”
Violet nodded. “They do that,” she examined Persei closely. “You seem to have a new resolve about you. Are you getting a sense of who you are now?”
“What?” Persei said, surprised. “How did you know that?”
Violet shrugged. “A pony with control issues like you is obviously compensating for something. You thought that if you could control all of life’s variables, the one unknown variable would become clear. You.”
Persei gasped and Violet continued. “Yes, you. All your life you’ve known that you never really fitted in. That’s why you shied away from making friends. On the outside you appeared to be irritable and unsociable, but that was just a mask. You were unsatisfied with your life, because you weren’t sure who you were. You knew you had a greater purpose in this world, but couldn’t find a way to get yourself there.”
Persei couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Violet was reading her soul to her, and she gestured to Persei’s blank flank. “You are especially lost. You have a blank flank. Your cutie mark is yet to make an appearance, despite you being an adult. You have no concept of what your talent, destiny, or purpose is. But rest assured, only the most powerful talents take so long to reveal themselves.”
“Really?” Persei asked. “I thought I would never find out what my cutie mark is without leaving the village. I grew hopeless and –“
“Frustrated?” Violet added. “I understand that. It must be difficult not to have the sense of worth a cutie mark grants you.” Violet brushed Persei’s flank, where her cutie mark was meant to be. “As I said before, you have no concept of what your purpose is, but it appears you now have touched upon it.” The unicorn cocked her head, looking at her sideways. “Did you mean what you had said earlier?”
Persei felt disembodied after having her soul interpreted to her by somepony else, but she found her voice. “What did I say?”
“Your vow to avenge the deaths of us ponies here.”
Persei thought about it. Deep wells of anger rose up within her. Nightmare Moon had tried to kill her as a filly, and had finally killed Mother. All the atrocities that mare had committed….Persei felt thoroughly angered, and that purpose, that directive gave her a sense of direction for the first time in her life. “Yes, I meant it. Nightmare Moon has to go.”
Violet smiled cryptically, leaning in close enough so she could feel her breath. “See that? Your destiny was once uncertain, now grows clearer with every decision you make. I know you will do your best to fulfill what you have said before us today.”
“Wait!” Persei said a little louder than she should have. Ultra Violet drew back from her. Persei hadn’t noticed it the first time, but the second time…. Us? Who else was she referring to? Was there….
“Persei!” a voice called her from behind.
She flipped around and saw Ultra Violet standing some distance away. She was covered in mud, and was panting.
“But…” Persei looked in front of her where Violet had been speaking to her a moment ago, and doubled back. “How did you get there?”
Violet gave her a strange look. “I had heard you talking before, but when you shouted I was finally able to pinpoint your location.” Violet approached Persei, looking her over. “Who were you talking to?”
Persei was thoroughly confused. “I don’t know….”
Was Persei hallucinating? No, it couldn't be. A hallucination was a figment of her mind. It couldn't tell her things that she didn't know already. Had it been some kind of spirit trying to teach her a lesson?
“Come,” Violet urged her. “You’re losing your mind.”
Persei followed Violet as she trotted away. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Where did you disappear to?”
“Apparently the trees here are enchanted, and the roots snagged me while you were mourning for your mother.” Violet wiped the mud off of her. “I had to fight these things in the mud to escape them.”
Persei looked at Violet incredulously. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What kind of camp would harbor a pony as powerful as you? Nightmare Moon wouldn’t allow a Dayborn like you to live.”
“You’re right, she wouldn’t.” Violet said, and sized her up. “Do you know of the Canterlot Hospital Massacre?”
Persei was intrigued. “Yes, I know of it.”
“I am a survivor, I had to become strong. I was a mother who had given birth that fateful day.” Violet looked down, and sniffed. “I lost my foal.” She then looked up, her eyes glowing with a purple fire. “I took out the bastard who gave the orders to kill my foal. I blew up the entire building where the commander was.”
Persei gasped. Ultra Violet had caused the explosion that had saved Mother’s life. She was a survivor too…. Violet shook her head. “You now have lost someone you love as well to Nightmare Moon’s evil.”
“Yes,” Persei said. “Something needs to be done about that wretch.”
Did Violet know of the light that had flooded the hospital, the event that triggered the massacre? What would Violet do if she found out that she was a survivor too?
Violet nodded. “The camp where I was taking you and your mother, it’s a place where the enemies of Nightmare Moon gather to plot against her. I’m part of the resistance group, and was spying on Nightmare Moon’s activities in the region. The time for us to act is drawing near, and….” Violet looked down at Persei. “We need motivated ponies like you to join us.”
Persei stared at Violet. A resistance group planning on instigating revolution? She remembered what the ghost that had looked like Ultra Violet had told her. Her destiny was becoming clearer with each step she took in the direction of vengeance. She nodded vigorously. “Where do I sign up?”
Violet grinned, embracing her. “We all have been scarred by that tyrant,” she whispered in her ear. “Together, we can bring her down and drive her unholy Nightborn children to extinction!”