I'll be waiting...

by Zweiterversuch

The Cave

"Help!! Somepony help!!"
I fell through a hole and I can't get out!!

Submerged in absolute darkness I yelled towards the upper side of the cave, hoping, naively, that my pleas would reach another traveler that, like me, had decided to foolishly go over the mountain and not around it, like everypony else.
That hope, together with my faith in a belief that had been branded onto my spirit through years of repetition, made me company for the first couple of days. But as soon as it became obvious to me that my food supplies wouldn't last, and as soon as I was unable to spout a single word due to the dryness of my throat, that hope and that belief left me and I saw myself surrounded not only by darkness, but by loneliness and despair.

Even if it was not what I worried about the most inside the underground cave, the ominous periods of silence in it certainly were what I hated the most, especially because of the countless little sounds and noises that followed them giving undesired wings to the darkest side of my imagination. I found myself thinking of beasts that lurked in the depths of the cave. Beasts that with a single swipe of their claws, or with just one of their bites could easily rip my head off my body and put a bloody end to my story. I thought about giant spiders, meat-eating moles, underground manticores and other monsters and associated every noise I heard with their approaching steps.
It was during these times, in which my imagination took over me, that I couldn't think of moving away from my spot. I waited, without making the slightest sound, for any sign of movement in the distance. My fears had forced my eyes to accustom themselves not to see, as this was impossible with the scarce light, but to notice movement in the dark. I could stand several minutes staring in front of me, looking for whatever seemed to move, waiting for the noises to cease and for my exalted mind to calm down once more.

Whenever the silence started though, contrary to the times when the crawling and cackling noises of the cracks filled the air, was when I felt the most the effects of the cave on my mind.
Complete solitude is a horrible thing. Not the kind of solitude you have chosen, but the one that has been forced upon you.
In the silence I felt the need to talk and so I whispered broken songs of worship and moved forward looking for an exit that could bring me back to the world of sounds, light and color on the surface, for my mind could not bear being surrounded by such eerie emptiness.
It was when the tunnel was quiet that I became more aware of my hunger and thirst and when I tried to look for the brightest side of a maybe more brutal, but less painful and quicker death than the one caused by hunger and dementia.

After my walks through the stillness of the tunnel I was always surprised to find myself nowhere near to where I started. I noticed the change thanks to the change of the acoustic of my surroundings.
Sometimes my whispered songs sounded clearer, giving me hope once more, making me believe I was indeed coming closer to an exit, while some other times my lyrics died inside the fissures of the rock meaning I had gone even deeper down the underground tunnels below the forbidden mountain.

After a while days and hours became meaningless for me. I cared less if ten or twenty or even less days had passed while I was down there.
I could only divide my day in four activities that repeated themselves over and over again in what seemed to be the rest of my life: to sleep, to walk, to fear and to curse myself for ever having the brilliant idea of going over and not around the mountain.

What an Idiot I was. I made the decision not because it'd spare me some time or because it'd make my journey any easier, but because I merely wanted to experience being in a place so sacred to us, ponies. As a pony striving to become a messenger of the teachings of the holy princesses I could not resist the temptation to experience being that close to the place where, according to our teachings, their kingdom was thousands of years ago.
The path over the mountain had no guards to guard it. The reputation of the mountain was more than enough to scare farmers, merchants and travelers away from ever using it. Although apparently it wasn't enough to shoo silly, overconfident cleric-trainees like myself away.

I remember I was already playing with the idea of going over the mountain long before I even spotted the bifurcation of the road that leads to Märisch, my destination at the time, a small farmer town in which I was supposed to take over the newly built sanctuary.
As the dedicated and overexcited rookie I was, I had left my home town many days before I actually had to in order to reach Märisch, which gave me enough time to use the longer path and still reach my destination in time.

As soon as I saw with my own eyes the gargantuan size of the gray mountain and its peaks the matter was settled and the decision made. I had never seen something so big before and so full of historical and spiritual significance in my life.

As I made my first step up the steep and dusty road I could already feel how a weird sensation of excitement invaded me.
To me everything the mountain had to offer was magical and awe-worthy. After all it was there that not only the princesses' kingdom was once upon a time, but it also was the place where the greatest battle of good against evil had taken place, and where the latter had finally been defeated for good by the princesses' and their kingdom's sacrifices.
The sun shinned upon the other side of the mountain forcing the shadows over me and my road. But I was alright with that. It helped me imagine the events that once took place there:

The kingdom was covered in shadows, the howls of the unnamed evil that befell it surely resembled very much the terrifying sound caused the gusts of cold wind that blew hastily through and around the sharp peaks of the mountain and its holes. The whirls of dust, picked up from the ground by the wind, surely were like the illusions the evil summoned to its aide when the battle was at its peak. And the cold sensation of being in the shadows for too long must have been exactly what the ponies at the time must have felt while they saw their rulers do battle in the sky above them.

My story was taking wings on its own. As I made my way up the highest place I could go without equipment, I swore I could hear the clash of metal and the whistle of unicorn spells breaking the air. When I reached said place and saw once more the sun shine. I felt what I assumed enlightenment must feel like. My body fell to the ground and I cried, touched by my version of the story told to me many times before.
I saw the mountain reach for forest and river, even claiming a great part of the plains as its own. It was bigger than my eye could ever hope to see at a single time.

"...and by the time we arrived with reinforcements we saw no longer the pearl white towers of Canterlot, nor the lush green of the fields around it, but the dead and dry gray of the rock our once glorious kingdom and homeland had turned into."

To my mind came then the words of prince Blueblood, one of the few survivors of the catastrophe and the one who brought back the former iron order to our then lawless society.

I cried for Princess Luna and Princess Twilight, for Princess Cadence and Princess Celestia, for the brave elements of harmony and every citizen that was involved in the battle. I felt moved by their bravery and unwavering hearts at the time of their sacrifice, moved to the point where I just had to pray and thank for their sacrifice for us.

I lowered my head at the sun in the horizon and began to mutter fancy words accompanied by what I know call "delusional tears".
It was then, after that religious experience, that my journey into the hell of the cave began. The mountain shook and rumbled and the ground began to break under my hooves.
At the time I thought, maybe due to the lingering excitement of my experience, that the remnants of the unnamed evil wanted to get rid of me, me that had just been touched by the holiness of the princesses.
I jumped and ran down the mountain, evading the opening fissures the best I could, but at the end I fell straight into one, leaving a pitiful gasp as my last word.

More than sleeping, cursing my stupidity was what I believed helped me the most at the time. I could spend long periods of time cursing myself for my decision, only interrupted by a short song every now and then.
While cursing I believed time moved once more towards an end I was desperate to reach, be it the end of the road to cement my despair or the end of my life as to get over my suffering.
This useless activity didn't last long, though. There was a time, or a day, in which a different sound broke my cursed chant and brought my attention back to something else.

The first one I hit was light and it was easily kicked away by the natural movement of my hooves walking, making a very particular sound when hitting the walls of the tunnel, a sound that literally woke me up from my mental drowsiness.
The second one I felt against my hoof was heavier and harder. This one I was unable to move, not even by putting my whole body when pushing it. That one picked my interest and curiosity and prompted me to look carefully for another one.
The third one was not alone. Right next to it where a couple more pieces lying around on the ground. There were some light ones and some heavy ones as well. Even more curious than before I reached for the one I felt the closest and held it in my hooves.
I was surprised to notice it had a very particular shape, one nature could not give to it, but dexterous hooves could.

There were some pieces on the ground that were long like cylinders, some others were like spheres with long dents and soft, round cavities.
On some I could even feel fine detail and decorations.
Invaded by a feeling different to the usual hopelessness I moved forward through the sea of crafted pieces of something.
The sweet sounds caused by my hooves moving aside the pieces on the ground was somehow enchanting, funny even.
But although I liked it, I still moved carefully enough between them as to not draw the attention of something else in the shadows.

Who knows how long I walked. It felt like an eternity to me, but it might as well have been a couple of hours.
Following the path those pieces of craftsmanship had let me through I saw the end of the path grow brighter. Not much though, but still it was better than the pitch-black darkness I had been in for so long.
I came closer to that light, finally, after who knows how long, being able to use my eyes again to find my way through the world around me.
I could not see the clear shape of the pieces of craftsmanship on the ground, but I could see a faint shade of color on them.
They were white...kind of.

Strangely enough in my head I began to picture the ruins of a city. I began to think about what I might find there. Vases, armor, furniture, clothing, sculptures the more I thought about what I could find up ahead, the more compelled I felt to advance, caring less and less about the noise I could be making.
Even if it was a ruin it didn't mean it was an exit. On the contrary, it surely meant I had come to the deepest part of the underground labyrinth, but the idea to see at least things a pony had made, prompted me to go there, not to mention the light that seemed to come from that direction. The light was a rather weird, faint, greenish glow that seemed to die out at times only to return once more brighter than it was before. It's source seemed to be at the end of the tunnel littered with white pieces of something.
I kept walking entranced by it. I didn't care about the noise anymore. I even felt so brave as to jump on a pile of white pieces only to get a better view of the strange glow.
In the distance a greenish flame burst for a couple of seconds and disappeared. It seemed to repeat this process over and over again.
I believed it was possibly caused by a gas leak somewhere down there, but I discarded that possibility quickly enough.
The pieces of white craftsmanship seemed to increase their number around it, creating what for me looked like a sea of white rocks, in which burnt a shy and feeble greenish flame.

I slid down the pile of white pieces and walked towards the flame. It was a heat source, it was a light in the darkness, even a companion if I used my imagination, and more obviously it was a certain way to die if I ever felt like it.
My sudden and careless movements were the start of a chain reaction that caused the fall of the biggest pile of pieces upon me like an avalanche. But at the time I saw it like a blessing. It brought me closer to that mysterious flame faster than I could have ever hope to run.
When the avalanche lost its strength I was surely just a couple of hundred meters away from the greenish flame. I was temporarily stuck, but it was alright. I was sure I could free myself anytime I wanted it.
I decided to stare at the flame and sink into its hypnotizing intermittent glow, but suddenly the flame stopped and I was like before, in the darkness, but this time I was unable to move.

Something moved there. For a moment I hoped it was my imagination, but something I saw told me this was very much real.
From where the flame once was two gigantic emerald eyes stared at my general direction. My heart froze inside my chest and my body became as stiff as the pieces of craftsmanship surrounding me.
The eyes rose and went as high as the cave would let them. Whatever those eyes belonged to was humongous. I saw them move around in the darkness looking surely for me. But even for them this darkness seemed absolute. It was the first time I was glad for it.
But the advantage darkness gave me was easily rendered useless when the beast of the emerald eyes, after a long and deep inhalation that seemed to suck all the air in the cave, breathed a green column of roaring fire over my head, not only revealing the truth of the flame to me and its true power, but the shape of the one the emerald eyes belonged to, a dragon.

Some of the dragon's scales were purple, some others were lime-green, but so thick and sturdy that no normal sword, spear or bullet could ever hope to pierce them. On his head he had a line of long sharp looking and curved green spines that seemed to go down all the way to his pointed tail. They seemed to sprout from his elbows and knees as well, even on the lower side of his jaw as some sort of dragon beard.
Its massive figure stood tall over the white sea of pieces, that now with the help of its green flame I could recognize as countless shards of broken sculptures of smiling ponies looking at me.

It was a horrible sight and I was right in the middle of it.

With the strength fear had infused in my body I managed to free myself from the shattered sculptures and ran as fast as I could.
My movements caused even more avalanches that the dragon obviously noticed. With movements faster than what I had ever imagined the dragon's claws tried to get a hold of me. I managed to dodge a couple of his swipes, but at the end he caught me.

The dragon brought me closer to his mouth. Finally the death that I had been thinking about so many times before had come to me, but unlike those times I thought about it, I didn't feel prepared to die.
With all the air I could fit in my lungs I screamed in panic. I struggled and called for somepony's help even though I knew there was no pony around but us, and if there were he or she could do nothing about it.
The dragon continued to pull the claw he held me in closer to his mouth as I continued to scream.
I thought I'd die, but something unexpected happened. A voice that wasn't mine echoed in the walls of the cave and asked me gently to be silent.

"Be quiet.
Nothing will happen if you don't scream like that again."