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// A Many Splendored Thing 
// Story: Broken: Love 
// by Knackerman 
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	This was a place that had never known the gentle kiss of sunshine. There were no stars or moons to lend the least ray of light. A luminous fog drifted fitfully over the strange alien surface, lending only the barest shape while rendering all detail hopelessly distorted. The sound of apocryphal winds groaned in the vast black expanse, but not a breath of a true breeze could be felt there. 

Perhaps that was for the best, as the damp chill that gripped the place would seep all too quickly into your bones, even without the aid of errant winds. 

In the distance, the soft susurrus of echoing whispers were silenced, as the sound of a great iron bell tolled. Its resonant tones pealed, boomed like the slamming of coffin lids, rolling over the land of shadow. Strange smoke choked flames rose in the broken stillness, lending no light nor heat to chase away the dark and the chill, but rather adding a kind of warped definition to their surroundings. The fires rose, in great roaring braziers that followed the complex curves and plains of walls that knew no geometry, euclidean or otherwise. Lurid visages of pain, hatred, and madness leered from every surface of a darkling city that took sudden shape in the impenetrable gloom. 

Edifices that could be obelisks or pyramids, as old and as dry as dust, were limed by the strange shadow light that spilled out over very inch of their wide, time worn steps. At the top of the tallest of these ziggurats, great bonfires of the smokey shadow flame erupted into twisted life, evincing the shadow of a great sarcophagus standing upright amid a circle of plinths. Each of the nine pillars was surmounted by a grotesque statue, terrible to look upon. One would actively try to avoid taking in the details of each, so strange and eye-wateringly distorted were they. All, that is, save one... 

One statue that looked much like the rough-hewn features of the beast known only as Despair.

From the mouth of this image, an oily black stream issued forth. The fluid splattered on the cold stones, as the filthy liquid flowed through grooves that were intricately carved eons ago. The last part of a pattern was being slowly filled in with shimmering detail, as the silhouetted effigy of Despair wept and vomited forth its fetid flow. There was a brief glow as the last of the liquid reached the massive stone coffin and the sigil, that had lain dormant for millennia, was at long last complete. A whirlwind picks up, dispersing the chill fog that had settled over everything, sending dust devils howling through the empty streets of the ruined city. 

After more years than can be counted, the haze that had engulfed these strange temples and towers are pushed away, to the very margins of its crumbling walls. The iron bell rings again, this time its clangor sounding like the last, and most chilling knell of an incomprehensible doom. 

Even so, it too is all but drowned out by the long, low creak... Of the sarcophagus lid slowly opening.





"I'm not sure I like where this story is going," spoke a familiar male voice from the ether. This is another realm entire, one where chaos reigns supreme. But chaos cannot wholly exist without some degree of order. "It was nice of you to include me in your little stories. I appreciate that," said the voice again as a lions paw reached down and ruffled the purple and white swirled mane of a little pony. "But I worry about the game you've set in motion. These are dangerous and primordial forces you are playing with. I'm not sure things will turn out the way you would like."

Screwball looked up, her eyes swirled with utter delight, and more than a little madness, "Don't worry daddy. My story will have a happy ending."

Discord looked down at his adopted daughter with more than a little sadness as his ears drooped. "That's what I'm afraid of..."