There were no corners and there was no Lunarium in sight. All she saw was a river, the endless stream that rushed past them and towards some place they would never get to visit. It glittered in the unearthly light of the sand, and it reflected crystals and stones alike. By this point, however, it all appeared a blur to Raindrops.
How long had it been since Trixie left? She didn't remember, didn't want to remember. The filly hadn't come back, and they hadn't reached their goal. She's dead, Raindrops thought, the words lingering heavy on her mind. We'll be dead too if we don't reach the Lunarium.
Now that wasn't a very comforting thought, but it was one that became louder every single time they slowed down.
How often had that happened now?
They'd been walking, drinking, walking, drinking, sleeping and then they'd started walking again. Had they repeated it thrice now? She didn't quite remember.
That was more comfort than anything else, as the filly didn't want to know how long it'd been since their journey started.
Not knowing the time meant that it would be more likely that somepony was waiting for them. It meant that somepony up there would be there for them, because they had more time fixing things if Raindrops couldn't tell. Right?
“Can we stop?” Twilight asked, yet again.
How often had she asked that now? Was it the fourth time or was it the tenth? Raindrops didn't know and she didn't want to, either.
“Sure,” Octavia answered, as she did every time.
She and Derpy both liked to stop, they both liked to look back, like somepony they loved would appear from there. Nopony came and Raindrops knew it.
Her stomach growled, not to be sated by water alone, and her legs ached, strained by a journey she never wanted to embark on. The others could do as they liked, but Raindrops was far too tired to even care about it anymore.
Every time they would halt, she would drop down on the ground and just close her eyes. She did that now, too. The caves all looked the same around them, but the moment she got to close her eyes, the world around her changed for the better.
Lyra was thrashing around in her sleep and sometimes she woke screaming and grabbing her leg. Octavia would quietly weep, humming familiar melodies to calm herself every time she woke. Twilight shook and cried, and it was clear that she grew weaker every single time. Yet every time she woke, she became more fierce about finding the Lunarium. Derpy, like Lyra, was always thrashing around, and woke with screams and sobs. By now she looked worse than any of them, but still smiled the moment she became aware that she wasn't in her nightmares anymore.
But Raindrops?
She dreamt of a story another filly had once known. She dreamt of a place, somewhere far away, with a gazillion stars shining in the sky and that filly had lived there. She had been beautiful, her parents would tell her, and everypony liked her.
On the first night, the filly had been she. The second time, stormclouds had roared aloud in the sky and a blaze was moving across the land. It wouldn't reach her, to be sure, because the filly was safe with her parents.
On this night, it had to be the third, the filly was gone and only Raindrops was left. Everypony knew that and they didn't like Raindrops. Her parents looked at her, despising her very existence and the ponies, they called her names and they threw rocks at her.
She stood in that place and saw them flying towards her. As she turned, they hit. She might have even felt them. Her legs, she couldn't see them, but she knew they were black and bleeding. She'd always been black, however, both in her dreams and in reality.
As the world rejected her, the pain surged through her and she wept. The filly ran towards somewhere else, crying out for someone to notice her, but there were only the ponies. They laughed at her, they screamed at her and they hurled their rocks at her. Her last bellow was the only thing that remained. She wished them gone and gone they were.
She turned around and looked at this place. Somewhere in the world it lay, a paradise another filly had known, some days in the past. There was a hill, overlooking it all, but as she tried to remember how the tale described it and everything else, all she saw was flames, and all she felt was the blistering heat on her skin.
Everything was burning. The world was on fire and even they. She saw the ponies, their coats ablaze, their mouth twisting as they screamed in the most horrible agony. Hooves and manes, tails and heads, they were covered in lights and flame.
They tried to run away from it, but those who reached the edge of the fire faced a fate worse than the one for those who stayed within. As their hooves touched the ground, they turned to cinder. All of them fell and they still tried to crawl, both without legs and without eyes.
Raindrops sat at the side as this happened, knew how quick her heart did beat and she wanted to scream the names of these ponies. But she didn't know them. The other filly had known them, but she was not here.
There were only Raindrops falling from the sky.
“Are you okay?”
“Hm?”
Raindrops looked at Derpy, who stood beside her as they drank from the river. The black pegasus blinked, wondering why she was asking that. Probably because she tried to be there for everypony now.
They'd all woken up in a bad state this time and only Derpy managed to maintain her chipper attitude. She had bags beneath her reddened eyes and she tried to force a smile, now that Lyra continued to grind her teeth in pain.
Sure enough, Derpy suffered as bad as the rest of them. Whatever nightmares visited them at night, hers made her keep rolling around, the time before this one she'd nearly drowned in her sleep.
“I'm the big sister, so you can trust me with anything,” Derpy said, her voice a bit too deep for a filly her age. “Mommy and daddy would want me to look after you.”
She said those words so easily. Sometimes she called Hugh her daddy, even if he wasn't. Raindrops never truly wondered about that, since this was her family now. She liked to think of Hugh as a father, too.
“Don't do too much. We'll all look after each other, okay?” she asked, perhaps too softly.
Derpy frowned for a moment. Clearly, she had wanted to be recognized, but Raindrops didn't want to leave everything to her. Derpy always tried to be brave, she always tried to be smart, but she wasn't all that. This was why Raindrops wanted to stick with her, because if she wasn't here, Derpy might stumble and fall and not get up again.
That was why she was here, right? Raindrops felt too tired to answer that question herself.
“We need to get going,” Octavia said, helping Twilight up.
Twilight got slower every single time they went to sleep. How sunken in her eyes were, how hard her every breath looked. It was like something was sapping all her strength.
The magic comes from the tear and the monsters that came through it, Raindrops thought, but banished it from her mind. Both the thought and all the implications that it carried.
Lyra agreed with Tavi, grinding her teeth yet again. She'd gotten quiet, only nodded, never smiled anymore. The pain was draining her strength, too, and it seemed to grow worse every time she went to sleep.
The spot on her leg, Raindrops didn't like to look at it. Black veins showed beneath the skin, which itself had lost its coat.
For some reason her eyes always kept looking back at the wound, for some reason she felt herself drawn to the terror. She shuddered and felt Tavi touching her shoulder.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “You don't need to worry about me.”
“Everypony's having trouble with their sleep. It almost feels like something bad is coming.”
As vague as that sounded, as terrifying it would be if the things Raindrops didn't want to think about did appear. But they wouldn't, right?
They started their journey in quiet again and once more they went past the same scenery, an unchanging river and the sound of water rushing past them. Raindrops almost wanted to stop asking how long it'd been since they'd started to walk. Maybe it'd been more than a day or two. What if it had been even longer?
Her stomach was growling when they sat down again, but she went to sleep nonetheless. Even after another uneventful long walk, she had no strength left.
To where were they going again?
The moon was scattered up in the sky. The drifting pieces became clouds and stars, the falling ones became mountains and fires. Beneath them was an endless sea of grass and a hill with a single tree atop of it.
Another filly had spent her days here, another filly had smiled and laughed and had told Raindrops that it had been the greatest time of her life. But the filly was gone and Raindrops only remembered the stories she'd been told.
This tree, she did not know which color it had or in what shapes the branches spread. Neither did she know its name, but she decided to walk up the hill anyway. Her legs were bruised, black and horrible to look at.
So she didn't look at them.
The filly just walked up the hill and saw a piece of the moon falling down in front of her. It was a bright, white light, moving straight down from the heavens themselves. A shooting star, the filly thought and felt how blood dripped down from her forehead and into her eye.
She closed it and moved her lips to make a wish.
As the filly reached the top of the hill she spotted them all before her. A herd of ponies, looking up to where she stood. Some whispered, some giggled, but then lifted their hooves in anger and their mouths twisted and shaped themselves. There was a noise, a long, long noise. It was a melody she knew and words she understood. The filly closed her eyes.
She wished them gone and gone they were.
The blaze went past her, a raging gale that she felt down to the tip of every feather. The piece of the moon crashed down before her and she saw how quickly the explosion spread. Only for a moment did she look, and then averted her eyes, looking to the sky.
The moon's pieces aligned themselves in the shape of a head, one that belonged to a griffon girl.
“What're ye called?” the voice whispered in the wind.
She saw clouds gathering, obscuring the sky with a coat of color, dyeing it all grey and black. The wind remained, it, and the drops of rain, falling down on her and obscuring the flames, more and more.
“They hurt me,” she said.
You are getting closer.
“They abandoned me,” she justified.
You need to take the dive.
“I never wanted to leave,” she screamed, tears streaming from her face.
You can do this.
Then she tried to see the one whose voice spoke, but all she truly did was open her eyes and then the dream died. Only pieces of it remained as she woke up.
Her hooves sank into the sand as she stepped forward.
“My legs aren't hurting as much as before,” Octavia said, stretching her hooves a bit.
She'd stopped her usual proud gait after the first time they went to sleep. Her legs were still bruised from all the times she fell, however, but she still led the group alongside Lyra.
Lyra was looking at her, bloodshot eyes moving as she thought of a response. Her aquamarine coat was dirty and her hair a mess, while the black spot was so very visible on her leg. She was shaking all over.
“That's just because your–“
She stopped, was unable to figure out something witty to say, made a face and gestured to Twilight that she should shut up, before the sickly filly even got a chance to talk.
“Is the pain that bad?” Tavi asked her friend.
“I have a hard time moving on three legs and every time I put my bad leg down it feels like smashing against the ground after being pushed out of the window by the salad mafia.”
Tavi had to giggle. “I don't think the salad mafia's a thing.”
“Of course it's a thing,” Lyra responded dully. “They're the ones responsible for bad parents forcing tomato juice on their children.”
“Eugh,” Derpy answered.
“See, she get's my pain. Do you even know how bad tomato juice are for you–Twilightshutup.”
Twilight dropped her ears a little and Raindrops wondered since when they had established a comedy routine.
“I don't know how bad tomato juice is for me, my parents always told me a proper filly drinks everything her parents give her,” Tavi said.
“But tomato juice is icky. Even Hugh agreed,” Derpy threw in.
“Yes, and it causes ninety-eight percent of tomato related cases of children's diseases. It's science,” Lyra said with a serious tone of voice.
Octavia bristled a little. “Children's diseases are linked to tomatoes?”
Raindrops felt her steps in the sand, heard the river to their side and watched the crystals they went past. She had to stifle a giggle, however, as she understood very well enough that Lyra was just playing around with Octavia.
“Uh-huh,” Derpy suddenly said and Raindrops did not believe for one second that she was actually in on the joke.
She did certainly look a bit confused as she eyed Lyra.
“Yes, there's lots of nasty, nasty diseases, many of them are caused by tomato juice,” Lyra said, getting more into her story.
Octavia certainly tried to play it cool. “You're just joking, I drank tomato juice the day before Twilight came and nothing happened.”
“That's because of the incuperatation time.”
“incubation,” Twilight corrected.
“That's what I said. It takes about a week or two before the Evilmato cells in tomato juice get to work. They say that after long periods of exhaustion, you'll suddenly feel better–”
Octavia's eyes widened and she looked down at her legs, Derpy's tail waved around nervously. Raindrops came close to laughing out loud, but turned her head away from the action so that nopony would see. Lyra was close to breaking out in laughter, too, finally getting back into her element.
“–and then you'll feel a sudden cold, like you received some shocking news.”
Both Derpy and Octavia stopped and looked at her. “I feel that way right now,” both of them said.
“Well, you need to–”
Raindrops couldn't hold it any longer and began to laugh. Lyra followed suite after a moment and Twilight joined in, though her laughter was more restrained than theirs. Octavia and Derpy stood there, dumbfounded, but the former quickly regained her posture again.
“You were messing with us,” she declared.
“Ohmigosh, your face was brilliant,” Lyra said with a roaring laughter.
Octavia tried to look at her angry and intimidating, but she was the smallest of the group and the way she puffed her cheeks was pretty much the least threatening thing to do when angry.
However, Raindrops was glad for a moment like this, because it made her feel better, because it made her feel like things were still moving forward. Even though the rest of the way went on in quiet, once they went back to sleep, she felt far more eager to get back on the path thereafter.
She dreamt a different dream, one that belonged to a stranger.
Small lights were buzzing around an apple tree and she was lying on the ground, her head covered in mushed apples. She got up and wiped them off her face, to stare into the vast darkness that surrounded her now.
“Were this any other time, one might consider this a usual sight, am I right?” her new friend asked.
He opened up his palm, held it out to her. It was a strange claw, one of a creature she felt like she did not know, but she took it nonetheless. With no effort he took her and held her up, for a moment it felt like she was flying again.
Another filly had flown once, held in claws like this, reassured by someone who'd killed her parents. Raindrops remembered the story well.
“I often wonder how you ponies live with your eyes closed, but I guess that's what history can do to you,” he said, a wry smile on his nondescript face.
Raindrops didn't want to look at him, instead she enjoyed being held like this. It was like she was a much younger child, all giddy when their parents held them up like this.
“Is this really what you want? To be held, to have somepony tell you bedtime stories, to get a toy from the dentist? Is it really so nice to be a child?”
“The adult world is boring and nopony likes each other,” Raindrops said, soaring. “The Dark is not for me.”
“Is it the Dark because of the things you saw, or is it the Dark because you cannot see?”
“I'm only a filly. I don't need to understand anything you say.”
“But even fillies die,” he said, now flying beside her through the blackness. “You are aware that you're going to die at this rate, right?”
She didn't answer, not at first.
“When there's a fire, a firepony will take care of it. I'm not a firepony. It's fine when I'm weak.”
“You say that, but nothing you do makes any sense. If you really are what you say you are then why?”
“Why what?”
He took a sip from his lemonade, drank so much of the glass that the liquid spilled onto the white table. The terrace that was now all around them was made out of white wood and they sat on white chairs. Around them were cupcake trees and birds looking like oranges flew through the air.
“Why what indeed. Let me ask you something. You saw the tear, you saw the nightmares, you had a chance to turn back, but you didn't. How does that feel? How do you feel?”
Raindrops grinned.
“I'm only a filly, so it's obvious. I'm scared.”
“Truly?”
“I'm so scared,” she said, her hooves shaking. “If I had the strength to show it, I would die of fear. If it weren't for Derpy moving on despite her dreams, for Lyra joking despite her pain, for Octavia being kind enough to lead us and for Twilight believing despite there only being horror around us … If it weren't for them, I would … I would. ...”
Tears were rolling down her cheek. It felt weird to say it, even if it was only in her head, only in her dreams.
He held his finger out and an egg landed on it, cracked open and revealed a salad that quickly spread its legs and crawled down his arm.
“Fear? Really? Well, if it's that, than that would be good enough a reason for me to talk to you, I guess.”
Her dear new friend. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I'm me, always have been. I talked with everyone who ever came here, too, much like she did. You can hear Her voice, too, right?”
“Whose voice?”
“How many people can reach out into other ponies dreams. There's only one voice, it has a blue tint to it.”
She looked at him, wondering what he was going on about.
“There isn't many things the two of us can talk about, not now anyway. You're still not flying, still got your eyes closed. Everypony has, it seems. Two believe, two want to believe, one follows and you? You're afraid, right? Well, before this week ends, you'll probably reach whatever you're not searching for. For my own continued amusement, I shall tell you something nice in relation to the entire nothing of your everything. The fire's in your head at the moment, but it belongs somewhere else.”
She blinked. “You're not making any sense.”
“That's my job. Now,” he said.
There was something else he said, but she only heard another pony calling.
Lights were flying around the tree, she knew their names. She knew the names of so many ponies and had been held by a griffon and now she was afraid and the fire was eating her up. All things were ending, but they didn't matter.
She woke up by the riverside and Octavia stood above her, bags beneath her reddened eyes.
“Come on,” she said, only to be interrupted by her grumbling stomach.
Her own stomach was rumbling, too, causing the two of them to smile faintly. It wasn't really a source of humor, as it made Raindrops question when she'd last truly eaten something. Nevertheless, they needed to continue, Raindrops needed to continue.
How she managed to get up was a mystery without answer, but she did. Her legs were weaker than before, her stomach was turning and she was close to an end. Even Twilight had said that ponies could only survive a week with the water.
Had it been that long?
Impossible.
She moved automatically by this point, her thoughts drifting between a mad spirit's lemonade and fire burning away someone else's world. She would see either again once they went to sleep, wouldn't she? They were night terrors, weren't they?
The Night Terrors of old had come back and now they were feasting on the darkness of her fears. Yet she didn't say it out loud, that she knew this. Everypony else probably did, too, anyway. It didn't really matter, too. What did really matter now, anyway?
They walked forward and even the river was drowned out by the silence. With grim determination they moved on their path, there by the riverside surrounded by crystals.
And then the sixth night came.
The plains were burning and she was looking at them again. Tears fell from her eyes, cries of wordless pain echoed from her mouth. What else could she do but stare, however, for she knew what was happening.
She saw Stone Heart wringing in the fire. The old lady had carried herself with grace and pride, hardly ever talking to anypony. Her eyes had been the color of ice, but now they were ablaze with the brightest light.
She saw Forest Mist dancing with the flames. He had stalked the forests in the south and walked through the mountains in the north, had laughed and told her he would teach her a new game in the future.
Slimy Git was there, too. Her name was Passion, in truth, but she was despised for what she loved to do, but she carried through the scorn. She had told her how invaluable a happy life would be and now she was dying before meeting her true love.
The herd was burning and she could give names to all, she remembered every face. All the blades of grass tried to get away from the fire, but couldn't escape. All the names wanted to flee her mind, but she clung to them no matter how much she wanted to let them go.
Amidst them, the father of another filly burned, a filly he had once loved and then abandoned. They all burned and Raindrops hated herself for it, because she was the reason this had happened.
Fire was all around her, their howls and screams were filling the sky.
He had wondered if this was fear. What else could it be?
Raindrops wanted to close her eyes, but they remained wide open. Raindrops wanted to stop the noise, but all she heard was their screaming.
Then there was something new, sounding in the distance.
A harp played in the fire.
A harp played in the blackness, there by the apple tree and the flying lights. It was a lonely melody, one she could barely make out at first, but it became clearer with every moment and all other noise faded as it became stronger. A song pierced through the heat and through the darkness. The flames rescinded as a voice, so beautiful and melodious, yet so sad and lonely started to sing.
It was a melody she knew, and words she understood.
Take my heart away
Take it far from me
Lead me astray
So together we'll be
and sing our song again
As the truth waits at the end
And we will let the earth be rend
Our hopes will all come true
And I will nevermore ask of you
Do you still dream of magic?
No wait, that's wrong
Raindrops opened her eyes. Lyra sat there in the middle of the sleeping group. She'd never sung before, or had she? Once more she recited the lyrics, once more the melody came to Raindrops. A mother had sung this to a filly, in a world she had once known.
“What are you doing?“ she asked.
Lyra jumped up with a yelp, making everypony turn in annoyance, but none woke up. The unicorn looked at her seriously for one moment, before she sat back down and started right into 'Cider In The Keg', some drinking song the factory workers often howled after work.
The little pegasus smiled at that and closed her eyes again, strangely peaceful at heart.
Whatever dream she dreamt then, nothing remained of it as they woke.
Then again, maybe it was the same for everypony.
After waking up they quickly went to do their respective businesses, drank some more water and before ten minutes had passed, they were on the move again. If there was anything different from the last few times, it was that they didn't stop.
“My legs are hurting,“ Raindrops noted hours after they'd started to walk again.
She continued nonetheless, they all did. Nopony really said a word, because everypony was too focused on walking. They were on their last legs, with no reserves remaining, at least that's how Raindrops felt. What strength she had was only there because she told herself she had some left.
Maybe she just lied to herself by this point.
But she kept on. At the end of all this the Lunarium awaited them. That was the thought she tried to keep on her mind, even as the glow started to dim and the crystals were replaced by normal rocks.
Raindrops couldn't really hear much anymore, nor could she really make out the river anymore. She thought of grass and cakes and apples falling from a tree as she continued.
“This is too much,“ Raindrops said, she did not know after how long.
“All you need to do is think positive,“ Lyra stated, a dull smile on her face.
She looked at Raindrops like she was a giant flower. That was uncomfortable.
“Think about, uhm. …”
Of course she didn't know anything.
“Oh, I've got it, think about being a robot! Yes, robots don't need food.”
“What's a robot?” Derpy asked.
“It's a thing that doesn't need food,” Twilight explained, her wits presumably failing her.
“Not even muffins?” Derpy asked in disbelief.
Raindrops wondered how her sister could think about such a specific food, but then again, this was Derpy.
„Yeah, not even those,“ Lyra declared proudly.
As if she had anything to do with robots not consuming food.
Derpy, however, guffawed. “That's stupid. How could anypony live without muffins?”
Lyra shook her head and sighed a fake sigh. “Derpy, Derpy. It's a very simple principle–”
Thud!
Everypony looked dumbfounded at Derpy, who fell snout first down into the sand. It was a quiet moment, one they all didn't quite manage to process at first.
“Hey,” Lyra spoke quietly.
Twilight somehow still managed to stand, she looked at Derpy, perhaps wondering if she should fall over, too.
“Hey, Derpy,” Lyra spoke, her voice still soft, but beginning to shake. “Derpy? Hey, Derpy?”
The filly didn't react and before them, the tunnel was already rather dark. Yet Raindrops thought to see a dim, bluish light glowing somewhere in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” Twilight suddenly asked.
The rushing of water had grown familiar, but it sounded different. It sounded like it was moving hard and downwards.
“A waterfall?” Raindrops asked.
“Maybe it's the Lunarium, maybe there's something to eat,” Octavia said and tried to help Derpy up. “Come on, there's food there.”
“Food?” the grey pegasus repeated in a hollow tone.
Now she was helped by the much smaller Octavia, but they kept moving. Twilight stumbled for a moment, before Lyra stood beside her. Raindrops wanted to gallop before them, wanted to hurry towards whatever made the sound, but she was doubtful.
This could well end badly for all of them. There might not be any water, there might not be any Lunarium. What lay behind them was darkness and what lay before them was darker still.
They should've just stayed with their parents and let somepony else handle both the monsters and the end of the world.
But as they reached this place, it was a cave, illuminated by a ghostly light. Two waterfalls fell from a small cliff, and between them stood a statue, its features washed away by time and water alike. At the feet of this statue was a small lake and around it land. It was fertile ground with countless blue flowers, glowing in a stone cave with all the crystals well away from them.
It might have been the most gorgeous sight they'd seen since forever, but Raindrops didn't care, Twilight didn't care, none of them did. Their instincts took over and they hurried to the flowers, who grew so wildly where no heavenly light reached them. Even Derpy, come back to the living thanks to the distinct, indescribable tasty smell they gave off, started to spread her wings and almost glided over to them.
They started their feast like it was the first they ever did. What manners they had been taught, what rules they knew, they were forfeit as they munched down blossoms and stalks alike.
For Raindrops, every bite gave back a little bit of strength, a little bit of life and a little bit of hope. It was like they'd taken the second step on a long journey, like they made it through their hardest trial.
Every bite that she wanted to be sweet was sweet, but when she tired of the taste, it was like the flowers noticed and changed accordingly. It was stranger still, because even Twilight, who usually ate so carefully, now bit down like the best of them. No, not stranger, this was better.
It was a taste of things to come, wasn't it?
Soon after, they lay in a circle, amidst more flowers than they could eat, looking at a grey ceiling, feeling like they just had eaten the greatest meal. Raindrops closed her eyes and breathed calm for probably the first time since this journey started. She felt strangely content.
It was then that Lyra started to hum her song. First, only her own voice, lonely and sweet, sounded through the dimly lit cave, but then another added itself to it. It was a voice much too high-pitched against Lyra's own soft tones, but Octavia didn't care how she sounded.
Even Derpy took the chance to try out her singing. She sounded like a colt even when she hummed, Raindrops thought, but at least she was enthusiastic about it. Derpy even clapped her hooves together. Raindrops did the same, but decided not to hum.
The last voice belonged to Twilight, and it was the smallest in the bunch, yet strangely persistent on making itself heard, for she only whistled against their humming.
It was a melody everypony knew, just as it was a story they all had known before it had first been told on this journey.
So together it was that they started into the leitmotif of the little seapony, and before they drifted away to sleep, five fillies from Canterlot created the most beautiful version of the Seapalace in the caverns beneath their home.