Revelation4,505 words
Song One: Prophesies and Fallacies1,982 words

Song One: Prophesies and Fallacies

/// SONG ONE ///

PROPHESIES AND FALLACIES

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At exactly six thirty in the morning, while the aurora borealis still twinkled in the black northern night, a pair of hooves slipped through a doorway deep inside a forgotten castle miles east of the borders of the Crystal Empire, ravaged by the surrounding tundra and years of neglect. Snowflakes found their way inside through eddies of air, swimming about in the oppressive, dry cold. The ancient cornerstones of the once mighty Castle of Ice crumbled and withered away in the wind, creaking as they settled against one another.

Magic light, an orange aura cast from the horn of a cloaked unicorn as he hurried through the castle, caused a slipping and sliding of shadows across the floors and walls, both covered in hieroglyphic text that was cracking and discoloured from years upon years of limestone deposits and water damage. The echoes of the unicorn’s hoofsteps rattled down the corridor as he passed torn wall tapestries and ripped portraits, their colours fading or frostbitten off of the parchment and fabric they had once clung to proudly.

The unicorn rounded a corner, coming into the sight of two black clad pegasi standing guard at the end of a wider section of hallway in front of two massive steel doors. The frigid cold crept in through archer slits in the masonry walls while a solitary torch cast a soft orange glow around the hallway from above the two guards. He slowed his gait, flicking his head back and allowing his brown hood to fall away, revealing a short, messy amber mane above piercing brown eyes on a bed of tan coat. He adjusted the saddlebags under his cloak idly as the pegasi at the end of the hall crossed their spears, waiting for him to come closer.

“Name and identification,” the one on the right grunted. The unicorn took a shallow breath.

“Citrine,” he said curtly. “Advisement to the crown.”

“Bags on the table,” the pegasus replied.

“Can’t do that,” Citrine narrowed his eyes. “For the eyes of level threes only.”

The pegasus on the right narrowed his eyes for a moment before turning to his partner long enough to give her a curt nod as they retracted their spears from in front of him. Citrine moved closer to the doors, muttering a quick thank you to the guards as he passed, before reaching out with his magic and pushing open one of the steel doors as he walked inside.

Citrine saw the commotion inside the huge, vaulted room before he heard it. As the door closed behind him, the familiar rush of a magical field passing over him made his tan coat stand on end. The silencing spell, automatically activated and deactivated by the opening and closing of the doors, faded once again, pressing flat against the perimeter of the room. Ponies ran about delivering memos and papers to each other, having hurried conversations and debates over red and blue markings on giant, wall-mounted sheets of parchment, and scanning letter upon letter of routines and checklists. Citrine took a moment to take in the scene of disciples finalizing their plans, facts, and figures, before making his way over the papers covering almost the entire floor, passing operation commanders and labour grunts alike. The unicorn pressed himself against the right railing as he ascended the stairs wrapping around the perimeter of the atrium, quickly trotting to keep in step with the hurried ponies ascending with him, and trying to keep a barrier of space between himself and the ones almost tripping over their hooves running down the stairs. Citrine turned his head towards the centre of the atrium halfway from the second to third floor just in time to see two pegasi messengers collide, sending a flurry of papers fluttering slowly towards the ground and two newfound raised voices to add to the cacophony already present in the chamber. Citrine scowled and shook his head, quickly turning to the right at the third floor landing and trotting along a dimly lit yet much less crowded hallway, the echoes of the commotion in the atrium fading slowly away as he walked further and further down the narrow stone hall.

He muttered under his breath as he walked, counting the rooms as he passed them and stopping in front of the seventh door on the right, milling about as he watched a pony exit a door closer to the atrium and join the stampede within. He waited until he was out of sight before turning and giving three swift knocks on the cold steel with his hoof. The door unlatched and Citrine shouldered it open, peering down the hall once again before sliding inside and shutting it quickly behind him.

“You’re late,” a mare’s voice said from behind Citrine. He whirled around to face the small room, lit with torchlight and floating magical light constructs. The walls were covered in bookshelves, holding up tomes of various sizes and states of disrepair. Behind a small ornate wooden desk, covered by papers, books, and inkwells, a sky blue pegasus sat quietly, deep silver eyes skimming the pages of a paperbound informational. A black military cap sat atop her head, almost succeeding in hiding her graying mane.

“Easy for you to say,” Citrine glared, sliding off his cloak and saddlebags and hanging them on the only free hook by the door. “You think it’s easy running about, Nimbus? Delivering messages? Especially with documents like this?”

Nimbus cracked a slow smile as Citrine sat down in the wooden chair opposite her. He took a deep breath, eyes pointed down to the table to center himself.

“I’m so tired, Nimbus,” he mumbled. “I just want this to be over.”

“And soon it will be,” she spoke. Her voice, while scratchy and damaged from years upon years of barking orders to underlings, still held a remarkably calming tone to the young unicorn. She moved her right hoof upwards, removing her military cap and shaking her head to adjust her mane. “Is everything in order for your meeting with the Equestrian consulate?”

“Should be,” Citrine replied, giving the wooden table two swift taps with his hoof. An amber glow surrounded his saddlebags and the top flap opened, a small sheet of paper sliding upwards and across the room to the table. Citrine pressed it flat, closing his eyes and muttering an incantation as Nimbus leaned back, watching with a quiet but intense gaze. The paper, originally appearing as a quickly scrawled out collection of notes from one of Citrine’s meetings with one of King Sombra’s advisors who was not privy to the existence of any sort of resistance, slowly warped and changed shape, the ink pen markings sliding about the page until a completely different paper met Nimbus’s eyes. “This is my itinerary. I met with Halogen Dust last night but had to conceal the checklist. Best way to do that was to take notes on it right in front of him.”

Nimbus nodded, her eyes moving from point to point, making sure everything was in order. She slowly leaned forward, picking up the sheet of paper and holding it closer to her, away from Citrine’s gaze.

“Let’s go through it together,” she said, “and make sure you know this by heart.” Citrine sighed.

“Fine,” he said. Nimbus gestured for him to begin as she rose to her hooves. “Everything we decided on was packed and stowed away inside the caravan last night. Copies of evidence, memory spell transcriptions, everything that we thought was pertinent that the Equestrian crown should know, it’s there.”

“When are you meeting the caravan?” Nimbus asked, standing in front of a small glass window in the corner of the room. Starlight thrown from the heavens illuminated the arctic wasteland around the Castle of Ice. Even on a clear night like this, the faraway western lights of the Crystal Empire were obscured by a perpetual fog bank clinging to the chilled rocks of Pharaoh’s Pass, the safest—not to mention only—road leading from the lights of the Empire to the hidden castle.

“One hour,” Citrine replied. “I have the signature stone in my cloak pocket so they know it’s me before they can see me. From there we cross Pharaoh’s Pass, enter the Crystal Empire, and teleport into a safe bay in Canterlot.”

“And because of your teleportation signature coming from a matching Equestrian area, you’re not going to raise any red flags on your way in.”

“Exactly,” Citrine finished. “We’ll walk into the castle, request the scheduled audience under the fake name we used months ago, and tell the Princesses everything we know.”

“And then what?” Nimbus asked.

“From there,” Citrine breathed, “I guess it’s up to Equestria.”

“Let’s hope, for the good of all Gaia…” Nimbus paused as she gave the itinerary back to Citrine, choosing her words carefully. “Let’s hope they make the right choice.”

Citrine nodded, his eyes transfixed on the snow flurries outside the window. Wordlessly he rose to his hooves, pulling his cloak and saddlebags around him with his magic. Nimbus sidled up beside him, opening her arms and wrapping the unicorn inside of them.

“Good luck,” she breathed. Citrine sighed and nodded, eyes narrowing with determination.

“I’ll see you on the other side.”

As the steel door opened and shut, allowing in the sounds of hysteria from the atrium for just a moment as it closed behind Citrine, Nimbus stared into the numbing cold with nothing less than exhaustion evident in her features. Every single hope the internal resistance had against Sombra had just walked out the door, packed and ready for a harsh journey for the good of all living creatures of Gaia.

“It’s on your shoulders now, Citrine,” she mumbled, casting her eyes towards the blanket of darkness above the horizon. “Farewell.”

King Sombra—at least the energy that was left of him—rested, eyes closed, above the crumbling throne of the Castle of Ice, where he once sat so many moons ago before his historic push into the Crystal Empire. While the grand, vaulting roof had long since caved in, marking this wing of the castle yet another one unsuitable for royalty such as himself, there was something comforting about the familiar yet decrepit detailing along the walls, something calming about the way the stone pillars twisted around themselves, forming spirals imbued with calcification magic.

Three quick knocks on the grand double doors. Sombra’s eyes opened and he channeled his surveillance spells to peer beyond the chamber, seeing a dark grey unicorn wrapped in a deep red cloak.

“Enter,” he boomed, allowing the doors to open. The pony walked inside with tangible confidence, brushing aside the snow that had built up on the floor of the great hall. “Auster Flare. Report?”

“Yes, my lord,” Auster replied, his voice deep and cold. “We are finalizing our preparations and will be ready to begin our assault on Equestria imminently.”

“Good,” Sombra replied, his dark energy form bouncing in affirmation. “I want the first breach team ready in eight hours.”

“It shall be done,” Auster replied, bowing. “I will send for you when you are needed in the war room.” Sombra nodded, closing his eyes once again.

“You are dismissed,” he finished. Auster bowed once again and turned to leave, his deep red cloak swishing behind him as he walked. The doors opened for him and he passed through, unfazed by the numerous concealing spells that whispered along his figure as he disrupted their fields.

Unbeknownst to either of them, a cloaked unicorn hopped into a supply cart a mile south of the castle, sliding off his saddlebags and settling in for the five hour journey to the Crystal Empire. Under the cover of moonlight, the caravan slipped out of the limits of the castle, pushing ever onward into the night towards the bright shimmering glow on the horizon.

Author's Note:

Hello and welcome to the new and improved edition of Unexplained Hatred, now titled Songs of Sanity and Insanity! I hope you've had fun reading so far and are ready and geared up for what I have planned for this story. Apologies if you suffered through the prologue, by the way. Now it's time to get into the real meat!

Thank you so much for reading, and I'm so happy to be back to writing fan fictions to be honest. It's been too long.

~Emmy.

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