Tirek stood alone in his cell, frail fists tightly clenched.
Everything was the same. The cold stone floors, the rocky walls, his pathetic excuse for bedding, his old stone bowl he’d painstaking carved long ago from a block of granite- even the light, grainy gruel that served for rations here were all the exact same as he remembered.
Nothing had changed.
With a roar of fury, Tirek punched one of the walls. Something in his fist cracked: Tirek didn’t care. In fact, he relished the pain. It reminded him he was still alive.
He had failed. Again.
He could acknowledge that. First and foremost, he was a warrior. One of the first lessons his father had taught him was that not every battle was destined to be won. Sometimes, it was all one could do to live to fight another day.
Twilight Sparkle had been a rarity he thought he’d never encounter among the ponies: a worthy opponent. Granted, much of her power was not her own and taken from the other princesses, but he could not deny her skill, nor the sheer ferocity in her heart! Even as he burned her home to cinders and beat her into the ground, she always rose back up to fight him again and again.
Tirek was generally not one to admit such things, but that fight-his first real challenge since he broke free-had been one of the most enjoyable experiences he’d had in over a thousand years of life. Granted, not so enjoyable that he wasn’t beyond seeking an alternative solution if it meant his demise, but the sentiment remained.
Still, if the battle had continued to its fruition and he had slain her, he would have given Princess Twilight Sparkle the highest honors he could to an enemy: a Warrior’s Funeral. He would have burned her body on a large hand-made funeral pyre, preferable constructed of ashen oak. After nothing but ash remained, he would have sprinkled a cup of wine mixed with a single drop of his blood around the entire perimeter of the pyre and uttered a prayer to the Primordial Lords to guide her into the next life.
If he had fallen instead, Tirek would have entered the next life with a smile; after all, there was no shame in losing to a worthy opponent.
What he could not accept with every single fiber of his being was the blatant impossibility of his defeat. He had, for all intents and purposes, won: the vast majority of the ponies in Equestria drained of their power, beloved princesses and even the Spirit of Chaos’ power taken for his own. It would have taken a god to strike him down at that point.
Yet, six mortal ponies, whom he had already drained and left on the brink of despair, had risen up with unbelievable power he’d never even contemplated, never the less seen and obliterated him in under a minute.
He should have won. He should have returned home a hero. Yet, he had not: instead, he was dragged back to the same, dark stone cell in the same accursed prison guarded by the same, oversized three-headed mangy mutt.
Why?
He would be the first to acknowledge that he did not truly understand ponies. They had the power of the elements and virtually limitless magic on their side, but they still allowed monsters like hydras to roam their lands? At least his people had an excuse: they’d tried and failed. Badly.
In short, many of their actions were as incomprehensible to him as advanced metallurgy is to a particularly dumb squirrel.
Even considering their differences in mentality, however, they followed many of the same rules of magic as his people did: magic could be learned by those capable, any and all magic could be accomplished via non-magical means if at much greater effort and time, magic followed a consistent set of rules, and so on. Perhaps one of the most fundamental things about magic was best exemplified by one of his master’s first teachings: “Magic does not come from nothing.” All magic has an origin, even if it isn’t readily apparent. Considering this, he could find no logical explanation for where their power had come from.
If he had been any other being, perhaps his ignorance on its origins could be excused: after all, he wasn’t omniscient, and could be blind-sided. Yet, the problem was that he was a centaur of the royal bloodline. Centuars in his bloodline, going back thousands of years to his mutant ancestor Tyraneus the Great, all had an exceptional ability to sense magic. When one considered just how unforgiving his homeland actually was and how much his people benefited from even the slightest consumption of magic, this trait was, understandably, an invaluable asset. When Tirek first came to Equestria, he’d nearly been rendered blind and catatonic at just how much magic was freely available: it was like seeing by starlight one’s entire life only to face the full glory of the sun.
Therein lied the problem: he had sensed absolutely nothing of the Ponies’ miraculously restored power until it was right on top of him. He’d sensed the princesses’ magic from miles away: granted, they had tricked him and what he’s sensed amounted to an echo, but the fact remained that he had sensed it. Even if Discord hadn’t told him of Princess Twilight Sparkle, he would have eventually tracked her down simply because her magic, once he actually noticed it, was like a beacon in the darkened landscape.
This made no sense. If magic powerful enough to beat him at the height of his power after he’d absorbed practically all of Equestria’s major sources of magic existed, he damn well should have been able to sense it.
If he had sensed it, he could have identified a weak point, thought up a plan of attack. Perhaps he could have escaped and fought another day. But, none of that happened, because he hadn’t sensed it.
He. Hadn’t. Sensed. It.
Four innocuous words, yet they echoed in his skull. Again and again, he heard the same words: "He hadn't sensed it." It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. Why?
It..No, why,.it couldn’t…didn’t-how did-why why why why WHY!
With another roar of rage, Tirek punched the wall again. This time, a horrible, organic crack pierced the cell’s silence as something in Tirek’s fist broke. Tirek winced, and stared at his bruised and bleeding hand in betrayal. It shouldn’t have been so easy. The stone should have crumbled first, not his fist. He should have had the power to break free of his prison. He shouldn’t have been defeated. Scorpan shouldn’t have betrayed him.
He should be free.
Tirek stopped thinking, and went to his meager bed. This was getting him nowhere, and was actively hurting him. Better to rest now, think tomorrow.
Tomorrow was another day.