From the Memoir of a World Gone Still

by Scootareader

III - The End

I stand proudly above the fresh wave of ponies bearing down on me. I have stood my ground here for minutes, murdering enemy after enemy. They have been trying to cripple my legs, I believe; their spears are largely ineffective and give me lacerations only several inches deep at most. I hardly even notice the dozen or so cuts they have made; they are pathetic creatures.

I heft my spear, then stab downward, impaling the throat of the nearest one. I sweep side to side with his corpse, knocking his front-running comrades around like leaves in the breeze. The ponies directly behind hesitate, watching their still alive soldier’s hooves grope the haft of the spear, trying futilely to remove the thing lodged within his neck. I oblige, pulling the pony in briefly and planting a hoof on his side, then tearing the spear out from his neck. He makes a final gurgle of protest before his frail body gives out on him.

The other ponies seem broken out of their trance and begin to charge me once more. I make several more stabs at them, puncturing the eye of one and piercing her brain, then directly into the chest of another straight to his heart with no resistance from the thin metal he calls armor, then a third pony coming up to me is knocked backward by one of my upturned legs. I move forward slightly so that I can place my hoof on his head, then I lean my weight on it, crushing his skull. I laugh bitterly, the soldiers still coming; I can feel my exhaustion slowly creeping up on me, but I have lived for these glorious moments, slaughtering my countless opponents in battle.

I stab my spear straight into the ground and bring my arms to bear. A pony runs up with his spear and manages to make another daring stab at my leg, causing a tiny prick of pain. I grip his head in one arm, then bring my other arm to bear and bring it straight down in a chop to the pony’s back. His body goes rigid briefly, then his form crumples, the spine snapped. Another pony behind him runs toward me, then gets sent flying backward by a dismissive swat. Their last comrade in this tiny group pauses in uncertainty, then I lunge and catch his hindquarters just as they were realizing that retreat was his only hope for survival. Pathetic. I lift him into the air and bring him in front of my mouth, then bite down on his throat, tearing it out. I pull him away, the bones of his neck still protruding from my teeth, his eyes looking into my own in abject terror. I spit the bones out to the side, then toss him away to die alone.

I am too near the point of exhaustion; I have seen what the ponies do to my kind when battle has made them weary. They throw nets and lassos over my brothers and sisters, pulling them downward to trap them in cells. Dying a prisoner is shameful; dying an honored warrior is far nobler.

I can make out a large wave coming up on me. I cannot be imprisoned like so many others, to die in shame in a dark cell. I move backward several steps and yank my spear out of the ground.

As soon as I can see the whites in the eyes of the ponies, I spin my spear around, grip the haft near the head, and slide the blade across my throat. A white-hot pain spreads across the place I just struck, blood swiftly flowing out of the wound and into the ground. I lay on the ground, watching my tormentors come. I see their eyes of shock; they question what they have witnessed. I try to laugh, but only succeed in coughing as more blood gushes from my sliced neck.

The ponies mill around, uncertain what to do. They are unable to find glory in killing an enemy who is already dead. They murmur amongst themselves in their language, casting sidelong glances at where they had come from. After a minute or two of watching me bleed out, a tall white one clad in gold armor comes out of their numbers and looks at me.

I do not understand the words coming from the pony’s mouth, but she tries to talk to me anyway. “We want to save you. Why would you do this?”

I answer her with a blank and insolent stare. The ponies are weaklings; anything that she could be saying is not worth hearing anyway.

She turns to a pony next to her. “Find a medic. Try to save him.”

I fall to the side, my strength finally giving out on me. Having run down the front of my body or dripped off my throat, a large dark patch of my own blood is soaking into the earth. It is my time; I close my eyes and accept my honorable death.

---

I bolt upright, sweat coating my body. I breathe heavily, my chest heaving in and out as I clutch at my throat.

Surprisingly, my hands are not slick with my own blood. My throat is unmarred. I am not meeting my death on the battlefield, nor am I surrounded by pony corpses. I am lain on the ground under the stars. Scorpan’s dark form is visible on the other side of the fire, which by now has burned down to embers.

It takes several moments for my breathing to regulate. The dream was vivid... so vivid. My first dream of death.

I have been wandering... months, perhaps. The days have turned from warm to cold, then to warm again. Scorpan and I have seen much and experienced much more. None of it is noteworthy.

I dream of feasts and famine, lonely nights and days filled with companionship, births of infants and deaths of kin. Every one of them is an experience; every one of them belongs to a centaur that is not me.

I rise to my hooves and stare up at the fading night, the stars slowly losing their twinkle and vanishing before the first hints of the mighty Sun. Scorpan’s voice drifts from across the fire. “And what did we dream of this night, brother?”

I hesitate. What to tell him? Should I be honest? Should I lie?

Scorpan, unaccustomed to my silent response, repeats, “Brother?”

“I dreamt... of death. Of myself. And... pony warriors.

“I was in a great war, Scorpan. With the ponies. They fought me, and I slaughtered them mercilessly. I was... a barbarian. I killed them with...” I peer at my hands briefly, “my hands. These hands.”

“You know it was not your hands doing the butchering.”

“All the same,” I dismiss his attempts at reconciliation. “I will be glad when we have discovered what I have come for.”

And what have I come for? What did I expect to find in this land? It has been a full year of traipsing across Equestria. I am no closer to finding the land which I dream of, a land filled with my kind. I still know nothing of myself; were it not for Scorpan, I likely would have given up and settled down to a life of uneventful chores and the tiniest sparks of happiness that Tea Tart would afford me. I fully anticipate that my journey will end back at that farm, accepting my average life as the only known member of my species.

Still, I persevere, and he tags along. I know not what he expects out of this; we both know it is only for my sake.

“Brother.” Scorpan’s voice cuts through my transient thoughts. I shift my attention to him. “I sense we are at the cusp of a realization.”

“Either we find something soon or we go home, Scorpan. You seem to know what is troubling me before even I do.”

Scorpan’s face, shrouded in darkness, is not his only defense; he never registers emotion or reveals any of his machinations. I have come to accept this. The only way that he can reveal his hand is in his words. “We have grown closer on this journey. I have no suspicions as to what the future may hold; I know that we will have to grow apart. This may be our only opportunity to be as true brothers would.”

He stops speaking, his words hanging in the air. A response? “This has always been your choice, Scorpan. I am grateful to have you as my brother on this journey; even I am rational enough to admit that.”

“Here.” Scorpan reaches inside his tunic, where a pendant has been tucked away. I was not even aware of its existence. “A trinket, for good fortune and good health. It has no true power. It has been around my neck nearly as long as I can remember.” For a moment, his eyes grow distant, a brief flicker of emotion crossing his darkened visage. “For my brother.” He presses it into my hands.

I look down in surprise at the pendant, then up at him. I then loop it around my neck in plain sight. “Whatever may come next, the meaning of this moment is not lost on me.”

Perhaps I worded that awkwardly? Perhaps I was too taciturn? Scorpan turns back to his morning duties, packing up his supplies, and I follow suit. Not another word is spoken between us that morning.

---

I pause briefly, our day’s journey well into its cycle. The sun shines down through the trees, painting bright swaths of color along the ground we are walking upon. I sigh in—uncertain. Perhaps it is a sigh of contentment, simple enjoyment of the day; perhaps it is a sigh of disappointment, that so much of the day has still gone by with no difference from every day before it; perhaps it is a sigh of boredom, that walking only holds so much allure until it becomes stale to continue doing so.

Boredom seems most fitting.

Scorpan pauses as well a short ways ahead of me, noticing I have halted. I force my legs to continue moving. Reassured, Scorpan continues walking.

I am aware of... something. Something is nearby.

A place.

Home.

The farm? Are we near the farm? No, not that; a different home.

I know where it is.

“Tirek?”

Abruptly, I am aware of Scorpan ahead of me. He is looking at me as impassively as always; his voice belies concern. Belated realization notifies me that he has been asking for me for several moments.

I say simply, “We are here.”

He comes back toward me. My eyes turn toward the forest. I have dreamed of this forest. The details have been slightly altered, but this is the forest.

I walk in, weaving between the trees. They are far too close together; my brothers and sisters would have trouble moving between them. They would not...

They would not have allowed it to reach such a state.

I move faster, the narrow branches grasping at my flanks in an attempt to slow me. There is... a clearing ahead. Somewhere I dreamed of. I remember the female. If I find that meadow, I find her.

I emerge into a grassy meadow. Long grass nearly reaches my belly, far too tall for creatures that have balanced diets of grass and meat. I shake my head and continue moving. I caught the female... here. This is where I kissed her passionately. The happiest moment...

Of his life.

There is more to see here. I turn out of the meadow to the right of where I had entered and go back into the now familiar forest, albeit with far too many trees. There are trees here, but this is a hunting grounds. There should be small clearings where grass will grow, but it is all overgrown forest. Nothing will wander through here.

There, where that tree had grown and was quite large, though somewhat young, was his proudest moment. A hunter’s hundredth kill. He had been providing food for years and never failed his tribe, unlike so many other hunters who often came back empty-handed. He also remembered his first kill, and his largest kill. He kept a stick with notches to keep track of his kills, with 20 notches on a stick before it was retired to his hut and he took up a new stick.

This is wrong. It’s all wrong. What am I remembering? Is this the past? The future? The present is different. I know this is my home, but it’s all wrong.

Perhaps this is the place where I will create the centaur race. A future to call my own. A home with my race.

There is one way to be certain. At the edge of the forest is the battlefield.

The trees end, replaced with a field of dirt. Little life is growing here; what weeds did manage to make a foothold appear sickly. The sun overhead has completely baked what life there should have been from this place. It is a fitting place to have a battle.

There, countless ponies will be slaughtered. There, some of my race will die to Princess Celestia proudly rather than rot in her prisons. There, my father will—

Die.

There is no indication that he lies there. There is only his spear, point stuck into the ground, and an unmarked headstone. He was buried where he lay, having taken the noblest death available to him rather than selfishly preserve his spent life. The ponies left his corpse for the maggots and worms to devour, rather than burn it and allow what ashes of him remained to journey on the winds till the end of time.

Here lies my legacy. Here lies my fate.

I turn to Scorpan, who has been silently following me. He asks, “Who was it?”

“An enemy of Celestia... and a friend of mine.”

Nothing will ever bring my race back. I will never meet another centaur. The least I can do is honor their memory.

They want vengeance.

Author's Note:

There's room for a sequel, but I'm not sure it's necessary. I think you guys can draw your own conclusions on what happened from here well enough.

Comments

[Hoops]

hold on Ima read

[Scootareader]

6772835
Woo!

6772849
I dabble.

[Hoops]

6772932 OMG IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!

[Scootareader]

6772933
Aw, thanks.

[The Fetish Unicorn]

This is definitely the greatest back story for Tirek I have ever read. Way to go Scootareader.

[Frelong of the North]

I... Liked this story. Thanks for writing this.

[Scootareader]

6776171
He needed some love.

Nice Redwall picture.

[goaway]

A criminally underrated story, in my not so humble opinion. A very good backstory for a character that most seem to have forgotten about already.

[Scootareader]

6778619
I am happy with what attention it's gotten so far. Two more votes and we can finally see the bar!

[Unimpressive Chaos Lord]

Quite an interesting read!

First off, allow me to congratulate you on your prose; it is so delightful to read. I enjoy those long, calm descriptions, but for the dialogue it tends to be a little more troublesome. It is easy to dismiss the characters´s lines as uninterested, and it´s quite sad to do so. True, you want to convey a feeling of severity, which I understand (I myself have fallen victim to this) but the result may make you perceive them as having little character.
At least that is what I got from Scorpan; since we got a good look into Tirek´s psyche we do get to understand him as a complex character.
But that´s the only questionable negative point.
I loved the environment, the entire story feels like exploring a mysterious forest reaching for a conclusion, and I like that.
The ambiguity of the plot is magnificent. This might be an acquired taste, but I adore how diffuse the entire premise, development and conclusion are. I think the relate is perfect as it is; no need for a sequel anytime soon.

[Ice Star]

This is honestly pretty fucking fantastic.

tho ya might wanna add an other tag for scorpan