//------------------------------// // A Flower of Light // Story: Tears of Light // by Halfpaw //------------------------------// I spread my wings and flew. My fire dosed by the storm inside of me. I had a family. A small nest to call my own. A home. And they were all taken from me. Taken by those who feared us. Despised us for what we weren’t. They had called us a bird of evil. One that had rose from the deepest part of Tartarus. Covered in its hellish flams. They called us monsters. Purifying. That’s what they called the act of slaughtering the innocent. As if they were fixing a mistake.As if we were a mistake. I watched unable to defend my family as their talons ripped apart my beloved. And spread her ashes so far that she could never come back to me. Purifying. Ridding the world of evil. That is what they said as they destroyed the last female of my kind. They spoke those words in joy, as if those words could justify the great evil they had committed by caring out the genocide of my race. That is what they said when they killed the rest of my kin. Is this my fate? To want death only to be brought back to my torment every time I attempt to free myself from the lose hands of life. Unable to rid myself of the guilt that slowly devours me each day. Each night. For eternity. I want to die. But I am not even aloud that little amount of mercy? Is this some kind of cruel joke that I am to live and my kin die? That I am unable to see my beloved again? Why? Why must I be alone? What did I do to deserve the cruelty that was brought about by my survival? From the cruel hand of those bird lions. I look down and see many lights. As if they were stars on the land. Lowering myself to get a better look at the stars I find odd structures that seem to have grown from the ground. I see much food yet I know that it is a trap. Food does not come without price. Perhaps the stars themselves have created this trap? A clever distraction to lure me out of hiding. I am done of hiding. Let them have me. Let them kill me. I have nothing else to live for. My heart aches for release of my never ending torment. I see a garden. Light up by stars in an image of unimaginable beauty. If I am to morn for all of entirety should I not be allowed to do so among the stars? Would it be disgraceful to even enjoy such beauty as my kin lay dead? Unable to be reborn like the thousands of times before our genocide. No. They would wish that I would enjoy such tranquility. They would never be so greedy as to suggest otherwise. I land amongst the garden. It is filled with trees that touch the sky. With flowers of colors even I hadn’t seen in my thousand lifetimes. And the light of the stars themselves. A monument to the beauty that is a perfect balance of nature and order. Harmony among the nature. Two things that when combined are the embodiment of balance. Of order. I hear the sound of crying. The quite sobs filling the previously peaceful night with an underlying tone of sadness. I turn to see a pony. A tall mare unlike any I had seen before stare at the moon. Looking lost. Like myself. She was tall for a pony. Her pink hair falling down her bowed head in lifeless strands as she wept. The broken sounds felt so wrong. Like a song without a singer. Empty. Such sadness in a being I wouldn’t have thought possible until I had lost everything. I flew over to the mare landing on a branch beside her. And I cried. If the mare was surprised she didn’t show it as she just began to stare to the ground as I rested my head on hers. Tears rolled of my beak in brilliant beads of light. They fell to the ground like a falling star, only hit the ground in a soothing explosion of light. The ground shimmered as a flower erupted to existence in an awe inspiring display of radiant color. Both I and the mare stopped our morning to look at it. It was a flower unlike any found in nature, its elegance unmatched. Its colors brighter then the sun. And it seemed to glow with a light that I could only describe as that of a newborn star. Yet when I gazed upon its elegance I could only describe it as depressing. “Have you ever felt alone?” How many times have I asked that question never to get a response? Only the slightest of guidance needed to soothe my forever aching heart. I cawed in acknowledgement unwilling to let another go unguided such as myself. “You are a phoenix.” It was spoken like a question yet it was clear it wasn’t one. I nodded in response unable to talk to others except those of my own kind. “I thought your species was extinct.” It is. I again answered with a nod. It was all I could do. “I guess you’re alone also.” “I too am the only one of my kind.” There was silence as I waited for the strange mare to continue. She started to sob again as she continue her story. “Alicorn were always rare... I never saw my father. And my mother died in child birth, I don't even know her name. Two alicorn children is too much for for a normal Earth Pony to stir. It was just me and my sister. Alone.” She gazed at the flower in thought preparing herself to continue. “It wasn’t too bad. We of course went through much harassment. The town’s folk didn’t like our kind. Difference is always frowned upon by the society. We were called freaks, monsters. It hurt but I had to be strong for.” “For Luna.” With that the mare fell to the ground muzzle barely touching the flower as she cried. I came down and comforted her crying openly about my own losses as I put my brilliant red wing over her. There we laid, in the garden. Both crying. Both lost. Both without joy as we wished for a way out. A way to escape our torment. To heal the wound that were cut so deep they broke our hearts. The sobbing soon ended. And silence once more over came the garden of the stars as both I and the alicorn fell victim to our own weariness.