Winter's Dusk

by SubaruGeki

Saint Theodore's horses

Dusk Shine sighed. He raised his head from the book he was reading and took a look outside the window. The cold winter had installed itself mercilessly, rendering the fields beyond Ponyville white as clean sheets. For how long had he been reading? An hour? Two? Ten? He had just began studying a book regarding pony mythos and folklore in the morning, and now the grey cloudy sky still found a way to betray the fact that Prince Solaris was beginning to lower the sun.

The stallion admired the sight of the slumbering nature outside, his magenta eyes sinking their sight into that white, taking his mind elsewhere. But for a moment he felt that something was wrong. Taking a better look, he saw a small black figure appear in the horizon, slowly approaching his city. While he would normally shrug it off, thinking it was just another farm pony bringing wood for their chimney fires, this time his feeling of unease told him otherwise.

Dusk blinked. The figure was no longer in the horizon. Was it all a daydream? Yes, it had to be. Shaking his head, the purple stallion resumed his reading session.

“The horses of Saint Theodore – they appear in pony folklore as young and proud stallions with large hooves and long tails. They arrive in the first week of winter in villages and cities to kill with their hooves the mares that do not celebrate the start of winter and are working or having fun.”

Dusk chuckled. It was all so obvious to him. Those beings were nothing more than boogie ponies cooked up to scare ponies into following interdictions, just like most religions that had infested Equestria for the past millennia.

“Why did Solaris even tolerate all these nonsense beliefs to spread like wildfire?” Dusk wondered to himself. “Oh well, this is part of our culture supposedly, I might as well keep reading. Who knows what other spooky superstitions might be in here.”

A few knocks on the window made the bookish pony jump out of his bed, awakened back to reality. He turned around to see Rainbow Blitz flapping his wings outside, waiting for him with hooves crossed.

“What’s he doing here?” Dusk wondered, trying to hide his blushing as he went to open the window.

“Dude, I’ve been waiting for you to notice me like forever!” Blitz complained as the window opened.

“For Solaris’ sake, haven’t you heard of privacy? I put the ‘closed’ sign on the library for a reason, you know.” the purple unicorn criticized.

“I guess you should have a few minutes for your awesome friend, right?” the blue pegasus replied with a grin and he landed inside the book filled room. “Man, the hell is with all this smell? Haven’t you heard of showers, Dusk?”

“It’s been a busy day.” Dusk admitted while closing the window, after which he thought. “Though I’m glad you’re here.”

“Alright, here’s the shpeel…” Blitz said as he comfortably sat on his friend’s bed without asking permission. “My weather colleagues said there’s a strange snowstorm coming towards Ponyville and there’s nothing we or any pegasi could do to stop it.”

“Why so?” the bookish stallion raised his eyebrow.

“Beats me, dude, I just came here because I thought you might have some weather spell to…”

“Let me stop you right there!” Dusk interrupted him. “You know very well I can’t do weather manipulation. If anything, we might have to address this problem to the Princes. I’ll go write a letter and send it to Prince Solaris when Barb comes back from Elusive’s.”

“Awesome! Thanks Dusk, I knew I could count on you, bud!” Blitz said and he patted the unicorn’s back.

As much as Dusk Shine did not want to admit it, he enjoyed the company of his choleric pegasus friend quite a lot. He did not know why, but something about his energetic way of being had always attracted him and made him tolerate his sometimes obnoxious attitude. Or maybe there was a little more to the Element of Loyalty than he thought? Who knew? For the time being, he chose to cherish those few moments they spent together.

“Say, would you like some hot chocolate?” Dusk suggested and opened his room’s door.

“Sure do!” Blitz ecstatically replied, following his friend downstairs.

Dusk did not lie when he said it had been a busy day. After breakfast all he did was stay locked in his room, reading that long book and staying in the same position which began to be a burden for his back. To finally have somepony to talk to felt like a small reward for his efforts, and yet he couldn’t help but keep his eyes on Blitz’s wings which seemed to have been recently brushed. His friend spoke but he did not hear words for he was too busy noticing his lips. But a familiar blue hoof waved in front of his eyes and woke him from his daydream.

“Dusk? Dusk? Earth to Duskie!” Blitz said.

“Oh sorry, what were you saying?” Dusk asked, embarrassed of his constant fading in to his thoughts.

“So I just got two tickets for the show on Hearth’s Warming Eve, I was wondering if you’d like to…”

“You know I’d love to, Blitz, but I am stuck with research at the library.” the purple stallion apologized, mentally criticizing himself for once more picking work over fun with his friends, especially his special friend.

“Berry was right, you do need to chill out some more. In any case, if you’re still up for it, I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the lights inside the library began to flicker.

“Eh?” Blitz got up from his seat. “What’s going on?”

That feeling returned once more to Dusk, this time making shivers go down his spine. Remembering what he had seen back in his room, the unicorn rushed upstairs, a confused Blitz following him quickly. Dusk Shine ran to the window and to his shock he saw a horde of black stallions galloping from the horizon straight to Ponyville, leaving behind their tracks a thick black smoke. He noticed that the hoofmarks they left in the snow were particularly deep and their tails were almost as long as a normal pony’s body length.

“Oh no…” Dusk gasped.

“Dude, what’s going on?” Blitz asked, but Dusk ignored him and rushed to his bed to keep reading the book.

“Saint Theodore is an agrarian divinity, his celebration taking place in the first week of winter to commemorate the death of nature. The legend says that the alicorn Saint Theodore is the guardian of the sun and it evokes a mythical chase in which the sun tried to rebel and run away from Solaris to hide at the West, only for Saint Theodore to catch it and bring it back at the East. Saint Theodore symbolizes a border between the seasons in which the sun disappears in the West and he begins to chase it for the sake of ponykind. The horses of Saint Theodore are his servants and the ones who ensure that their master’s celebration is being held. In this period of the year, a series of interdictions are being imposed upon mares and stallions.”

“What a load of bullshit!” Blitz spat.

“If you’re so quick to dismiss it as bullshit, then tell me, Blitz, what in the name of Solaris’ green earth are those?!” Dusk pointed outside at the marching horses which were quickly approaching Ponyville.

“Momma mia…” the blue stallion’s jaw dropped.

“The horses are actually good spirits who are meant to bring back order, but in order to avoid their destructive power you must stand out of their way. Those who go out partying or working are either beaten to death if they are stallions or are decapitated if they are mares, since the horse is a symbol of death, being the one who guides souls to the afterlife. To appease them, funerary offerings were made inside houses. But the horse is also an erotic symbol…” Dusk paused for a moment, thinking of some of the times when his blue friend accidentally crashed in his library, always giving him a good view of that glorious plot. “Thus to benefit from their powers, mares would usually wash their mane in sanctified water on the dawn of Saint Theodore’s day, mixing the water with different herbs, for it was believed that the horses would make their manes grow as long as their tails.”

“Dusk, that’s all nice, but is there any way we can bucking stop them?!” Blitz bluntly interrupted his friend’s read.

“Wait a minute…” Dusk Shine browsed the pages quickly. “Aha, it says that if one is to encounter the horses, the only way they could spare their life is by repeating the following stanza three times: Theodore/Saint Theodore/Call off your horses/Change their courses.”

“And you actually think that’ll work?”

“I’m also skeptical, Blitz, but it’s the best we got.”

Outside, ponies were running into their houses, sheltering themselves from the imminent danger. The few who were still on the streets either since they couldn’t run or they had nowhere to hide were being helped to Rainbow Blitz.

“Good luck, Dusk.” the rainbow stallion thought as he took a quick glance at his purple friend.

Dusk Shine stood at Ponyville’s entrance and stared at the army of black horses who were just a few feet away from entering the city. They had all fixated their blood red eyes on their first victim who seemed to be greeting them with sharp stares from his eyes. Looking at the sky, Dusk Shine fell on his back legs and cried the stanza three times to the sky:

“Theodore/Saint Theodore/Call off your horses/Change their courses!”

The eyes of the fiendish horses widened as they heard the chant their master had cooked to stop them from harming innocents on their path of justice. Just as they were a second from entering Ponyville, they all vanished, nothing remaining of them but a fog which began to dissipate. Dusk Shine sighed. He did it, he had saved his new home from yet another danger. But the feeling of dread returned yet again as he raised his head and he saw the small black figure in the horizon once more. Whatever that thing was, it had returned.

Author's Note:

Good evening, fellow readers, this is my first pony fic I ever wrote! I hope you enjoy it, I pretty much wanted to mix what I liked most into it, that being old folk legends, horror and some yaoi. ;) I'll see if I'll add some clop scenes in the future, but until then, I hope you enjoy my modest piece of work. ^_^