From the Flames in the Firelight

by Snowybee

5 - ...All of the Pieces in the Sky

Yama walked with her, shoulder to shoulder. The heat suffocated the alicorn, whilst the earth pony stepped through the charged air. Only the blue light of her horn guided the pair, and the dull vines ate the light up. What remained was an infinite flue of black ink all around. The barren ground right at her hoof was all that her horn could reveal, and droplets of sweat that fell into it left beads of light in her wake.

The earth pony left no such mark. When she spoke, tawny wire spilled from her mouth rather than a voice. She could hardly remember it. ‘Measures, Cadenza. This won't last forever. You've got to learn yourself about these things. You’re a child. Yet, you’re a celestial being. The Goddess visited you at our most dire hour and bequeathed the opportunity to grow. To lead. Whether you like it or not, Cadenza, is of no consequence now.

Our petty society bred a weak mind into you, but you must fix it. Transcend your petty desires, as you did for that short moment. Your perfection saved my soul from that demon. Though I’m interned on Equestrian soil, my heart belongs to you. I will not let myself waste away without parting my lifetime of wisdom to you, Cadenza.

My first lesson, Princess, is measures. You do not have the luxury of simply brushing things under the rug. Your existence itself is a tantalizing chip on the world’s table. Resolve all conflicts. Calculate your mercy; do not withhold it nor treat it as charity. The landmark that the demon created will surely catch some greedy trailblazer’s eye in years to come. You can’t let the Amulet exist where you have no eyes. Once you find your holy strengths, you may, once and for all, penetrate its shell and destroy it. Do not let fear control you. An Alicorn ruled by fear is…’

“A sheer disgrace, Yama.” Cadance flared her horn. The light caught the dim form of something up ahead. “I know what I am. If I were in Celestia’s shoes, I never would trust such a majestic empire to such a worthless ruler. A childish, immature pegasus. I smiled on that coronation day, but deep down I could only see Celestia using me as a gross insult to that Empire.”

‘Bah! Your self-flagellation grows tiresome. You’re not making yourself look better to me, Cadenza. Ungrateful survivors are the true insult. You never would have taken the Sun’s hoof if you didn’t feel the slightest bit of selfishness, would you have? No sane mortal would lay amongst that carnage and deny such timely salvation. But to take that salvation itself is a sign of selflessness. Don’t you understand, Cadenza?’

“You speak nonsense, Yama. I should expect no less from an old mare.”

‘You know who you are, as do I. A creature such of yourself is destined to live a life of suffering. A mortal would have chosen to die, then and there.’

The shape of a humble stone cabin bloomed into view. Scarlet-brown stained the edges of the door, especially at the hinges. The alicorn knelt down at the portal, putting her hoof to the stone. The phantom of Yama stepped forward, then settled onto the dirt. The lines upon lines of wire which spelt out her speech fluttered overhead, losing its intelligible shapes. Quietly, the older mare tucked her head between her forelegs and curled up, just like before. To Cadance’s dismay, the ghost evaporated out of sight.

She shook her head. With force, her hoof pressed against the door. Resistance came with its age, but her strength quickly overcame it. Dust rained from the ceiling and clouds of darkness billowed from either side of the door. The sheer negativity came close to anchoring her hooves to the ground with leaden weight.

The simple dining table greeted her. The air lent the sensation of slithering to her legs. Slither she did, until she could prop her forelegs on the table. Despite what her memories lead her to believe, the surface was near immaculate. Dusty, but presentable.Just off center, she remembered the amulet laying upon the table. Did Yama have her circle to the other side? Was her back to Cadance when she first stepped in? It must have been. It felt a tad poetic. Perhaps Yama faced her. The temptation was strong to remember things in a more dramatic light.

Even moments like this were undignifying to the actors. Likely, Cadance probably shivered with fright. Yama was just as scared of the intruder. The power dynamic was reversed. Maybe they Amulet had them both at its mercy.

How she stepped into this fateful moment, she couldn't say.

Her horn flared. All manner of frames surrounded her, upon shelves or nailed to the wall. Insects, a variety, many she couldn’t even begin to name, sit lifeless in every one.

An old foalhood friend knew Yama. They enjoyed her collection, despite the mare’s feared reputation. Did they have friendship? A meaningful bond? It could have been how Cadance got through the Amulet’s hold. Not anything she did, but rather her friend. They deserved what she had gotten, if that was the case.

Cadance shook her head. No time to go down that road. Like a creaking battleship, only the vague sounds of the waves slapping the earthen hull clued her that anything was amiss. Stains led to the hallway, and she followed. A blind and bumbling giant, lead by dwarves into a trap.

Her, or the remorhaz? Did she underestimate it, or did it underestimate her? The creature knew that its prey was just inside here. It saw her enter. Was it unthinking? Or: did it think her a weak morsel?

Stairs. The chill air came as a surprise, a pleasant one. The slowly heating air stifled. She didn't like it. The pale wood beneath her hooves looked warped. The tight corridor pushed Yama’s collection into her face. The wings and carapaces of her insects flaked into tatters. The shifty temperature at the heart of the cabin was to blame, she figured.

The stains scurried beneath a heavy stone panel. Ropes coiled on top of it, fixed to a bolted-on handle. The little pulley system. Despite the circumstance, Cadance chuckled.

“Only a filly as dumb as me would think you could slow a demon down by trying to lock them in. Surprised it actually worked.”

Her icy magic lifted the bulky slab as if it were foam. A quick glance told her that there was no where to set it aside. Crumble it did. Her teeth bared with the strain, but the stone powdered in short order. The little exercise helped clear her head.

She hopped. Her wings gently lowered her into the darkness, truly pitch darkness. Cadance glided down the dirt slope, precise enough to avoid touching the ground above and below her. Her eyes had finally adjusted. The dirt below yielded nothing. The stains must have sunk in. She feared kicking something disgusting up.

The vault door snuck up on Cadance. She cried out just as it came to view and braced her hooves against it. The powerful alicorn flopped into the dirt. The metal dinged playfully. Cadance scrambled to her hooves. The dirt and gore and hate itched her skin. She shook and combed her body with magic.

Retching, the mare took to the air once more. Her magic held her aloft. She glared at the massive plate of metal.

Yama could never move it on her own. The Amulet gave her the strength, and for a single moment, Cadance had been forced to borrow that power. She knew how to tame the beast, but what had it been doing all these years? Did it devolve into something like King Sombra? Could she even at least intimidate it into being her servant?

When her magic reached out to the vault door, pain lashed across her skull. The mare blinked. She hadn’t even tried to move it. Another attempt. The pain nearly floored her, forced her to crumple against the wall and hold her head and whimper.

“N-not now,” the mare growled. “I can't be drained now!”

Reluctance. Moving this obstacle now could seriously injure her. But then, the Amulet. If she had it, no injury could stop her. Did she really know what lay behind the door?

Her magic seized it again. Some monster screamed into her ears. Metal whined. A vice pressed her skull. The vault door! She must have fell in its path! She jumped away blindly into the stairs. Her magic wavered. Cadance pushed once last time. That screaming monster pounded spikes into her neck. Some foreign strength entered her.

Her vision swam. Images of the yawning door overlapped in different tints, covering up the darkness just behind. She couldn't keep it up. With hardly a thought, Cadance tumbled onto the ground. Her chin tingled in comparison to everything else. She scurried forth, toward the opening she couldn't see. She prayed it was in front of her.

When her icy magic when out of sight, she let it go. A ghost of that scream filled her ears. The ground shook. Nothingness cradled her.

But she wasn't unconscious.

Something relaxed her muscles. The sweat soaking her coat went from disgusting reminder to relaxing coolness. It felt like the strange presence playfully rolled her eyes around in her head, back to where they should have been.

Nothing to see, but she appreciated it. Everything felt right… again....

“Is that you, my child? Oh, please tell me it is so! I don't care who you are! I'll give you even more, just as long as you stay!”

Everything felt… better…

“Please, say something. I must know. Is it you? Or is it that traitorous wretch?”

Was that a voice? It could have been. They spoke through a haze of cicadas. It sounded choppy.

“I should have killed her. I should have forced h-h-h-you under the door! I should have caused this place to cave in upon her! Is it you? Oh, I didn’t want to hurt you, precious. You were too young to see those things.” The voice panted. Was it tired? “You can even bring the mercy out in such a monster as me, child. You are truly, truly precious.”

The earth took all the stress away from her neck. Cadance’s spine cracked with every movement, every stretch, and it felt divine. All those miles of flight and of hiking…

“And for what, child? For me. I knew it was you. I never had any doubt. I forgot that the traitor was a useless thing. She could never enter this place on her own.”

One by one, her feathers rearranged themselves.

“She did one thing right. She betrayed me to you. I’m torn, child. My hunger sees you as a delicious concoction of love and hatred. My mind sees you as a beautiful creature that I must understand and protect. You are what I need. A champion of your own perfection, set upon this ugly, ugly world.”

“It’s beautiful.” Cadance covered her mouth.

“Of course, of course! It is beautiful. The ants crawling upon it are what mar this world’s perfection.”

“But…” Cadance gulped. She didn’t want the ecstasy to end, but her lips moved on their own accord. “Ponies are what make it beautiful. All life does. We all bring something unique, something all our own. We love and we hate. Imperfections go hoof in hoof with perfection.”

“You don’t believe that, do you? You spew it out of some twisted sense of propriety, and how you actually think you believe it! I see now. You’re here to slay that beast. The one causing this racket. Please, do away with it for your mother. You’ll have forgotten that nonsense once you bloody your hooves a little.”

“My mother is—”

“Is unaccounted for. Your guardians? Dead. All you have is me, child. Whatever creature that has been guiding you all this time clearly did not have your well-being in mind. They wanted a puppet. Tell me, do you agree with that assessment?”

She bit her lip. Could she really have ruled without Celestia holding her hoof, every step of the way? No. She couldn’t have pushed herself onto something she deserved so little on her own. Not without…

“Yes! Now you see! Do not forget what they did to you, child. Oh, I can see it clear as day. Your mind has been tampered with. Such a disgusting act! Mind is the only thing us living things have agency over. Or so we love to think. I would maim and brutalize without a second thought, but to violate something so sacred?”

“L-Luna actually did something to me?” Her breaths came quick. “I-it mustn't have worked. I still went on this journey, and she was trying to stop me. Wasn’t she?”

“On the contrary.”

Luna visited her not long ago.

“Even now, your actions have been decided for you. Your mother, however, is something only you know of. I doubt this manipulator expected such a thing to be on your path. If you accept me, Cadenza, you no doubt will surpass them. Behold your body! I have restored it entirely, even with this feeble amount of love I cling to.”

Slowly, Cadance rose to her haunches. Her legs felt loose. Tingly warmth soaked her muscles, as if she had just stretched. Her mind felt painfully clear. Her eyes could finally see in the darkness. A tiny, dim glow at the center of the the cave. Her horn lit up.
The Amulet.

The ground made like a pedestal under it. The rest of the floor sunk a few inches, marked with a wavy, sandy texture. Chunks of earth lay short of the walls, walls covered in pores where something had ripped the chunks from. Directly above the Amulet, she could see a tunnel, an attempt at escape.

“You nearly freed me last time, child. Having been trapped in this hellish state for so long, do you blame me? Blame me for trying to keep the only company I had found in decades?

“Free me, Cadenza. Once and for all. Make me a part of you. My last wish is to see you grow, child.”

She didn’t react. With her face as blank as she could maintain., Cadance stepped closer. “I’m going to crush this amulet under my hoof. It will terrorize innocent ponies no longer. I will turn its energies into righteous deeds. I will crush any imperfections in my Equestria, my Frozen North. With me amongst them, the Royal Family will never know hopelessness, never succumb to evil. By my hoof alone, all enemies who threaten the peace of what is mine will be destroyed. All who dare to will never know mercy for the rest of their meager lives.

“The wicked will fear my hatred.”

If she were blind, she wouldn’t have known that the gem shattered under her hoof. It splintered almost eagerly. Crimson light filled the cave. Every last corner revealed itself to her. Up above, she could almost see the remorhaz where it slithered. The heat fed into her eyes through the meters of earth.

It fueled her rage.

Fiery magic erupted through the earth. It met the barrier of vine a split second after. It punched through. The alicorn rose inside the pillar of flame, and at last it died down when she exited the shell. Her unrestrained magic wrapped around her entire body.

Below her, the wurm tilted its head. That beady eye met hers. The creature gazed as if she was just a rodent caught between the ground and its belly. Smoke billowed from its nostrils. Grass became ash near its hide. Even in the distant trees, blackened leaves tumbled to the earth. The remorhaz crept towards the alicorn.

Cadance circled away. The thing circled to match her.

She dove. Her magic shrieked against the air, ate it and left a vacuum in her wake. Her speed cracked like a continuous rain of lightning. The remorhaz hardly had time to react. Her wing grazed the scales of its neck.

Its tail lashed towards her. The alicorn smirked. A roll put her blazing wing in its way instead. Magic crushed its way through the remorhaz’s hide. The blade broadened on its way. The tail, cut clean, tumbled to the ground.

The alicorn circled back around. The remorhaz sidewinded away from her. Earthquakes trailed with it. Its eye hardly showed pain. She dove for the throat again.

Steam exploded from the gash in its neck. The image became distorted. In panic, Cadance made a rough upward arc.

Something seized her hind leg. Her teeth gnashed. Behind the shimmering heat, the remorhaz’s eye twinkled, just within reach of her. Magic pooled into the limb caught in the corner of its beak. The heat of its maw fought against her magic. The seismic pressure slowly cut the circulation of her blood and magic off.

The alicorn roared. Her wings pumped. Body twisted. Bones snapped. She broke free and away from the heat.

Her magic pooled over the wound. She felt no pain, just the same. Her eyes remained full of hate, hate towards the soulless eye staring her down. Its beak now hung open, longing for another taste.

She obliged. Her explosive flight encircled the wurm. Its hide no doubt withstood it, but she could see its eye staring forward. It didn't even try to keep up.

Lunge! Her gut decided at random. Her heat-bladed wing went straight to its neck, lower than before. The scales raised with a flick. The alicorn broke left at the last moment. Molten rock burst from its skin. Her wing snuck between its scales — before magma could pour from its entire circumference.

The monster at last rumbled in its pain. The neck shook like an unstable shelf of land. She grinned like a madmare.

Her vision deepened in color. She could see the pustulous scarlet blob working its way through the remorhaz’s throat. Her raw magic could even shine through the beast’s hide. Her hateful magic called to her yet. Fifteen seconds. Fifteen until it crossed the wound she made.

Her body went numb. She glanced down to her misty legs. She could see the ground below through them, barren and dead. Hatred hissed from the corners of her eyes. The wurm’s body continued to erupt with uproarious magma in its rage, splashing in every direction. Trees smoldered dozens of yards away. The destroyer’s mere existence brought death upon her land. Upon her family.

It slithered through everything that made her who she was, and just as as soon as it did, her loved ones, her home, turned to ash.

She would erase it. Torturing such a creature was beneath her. She would remove every last trace of its body from this world, and forget it even existed. She would at last leave this accursed place behind her. The fire in her heart dance on their remains, and no longer would she insult their memory with her indescribable rage towards the remorhaz.

The alicorn whispered. “Through revenge, I may know peace.”

The wurm’s maw opened wide. Stones ground, deafening. A burst of black, toxic smoke burst forth from the wurm’s belly. The sky seemed to bend away from the searing storm, as if it were a tear in space.

The alicorn refused to budge. Her wings spread in response. Her incorporeal wings knew no limits. A wall of magic spread from her feathers, inward toward the remorhaz.

The barrage ended at her wall. The cloud of death destined for the horizon; the cloud of death that would have scarred the land forever, stood no chance against her. The wave of poison rebounded off her celestial body with the sheer force. Her magic spread ahead of it, cutting it off just short of the remorhaz.

A massive black dome stood in the barren land, neighbor to the wicked shell of vines.

The alicorn could still see her scarlet magic, even through the impenetrable dust. The wurm thrashed about against her shield, but to no avail, mighty as it was. She closed in.

Its last, desperate attack gave her the cover she needed. Her three hooves planted upon the stony creature. The open wound bled scalding blood, just hot enough for her to tell the difference from the volcanic air.

She raised her foreleg.

“Good riddance.”

***

Her wings pumped as hard as they could. The sun dipped behind her.

Her dark forelegs stretched out before her. The last signal from her nephew was somewhere between her hooves. So close.

Princess Luna’s brows shot up. The two black domes breached the horizon. Questions assailed her.

She circled around the arena of ruin. Smoke plumed all around the clearing, zapped of all life. One dome appeared natural, organic. The other shimmered with wicked magic. Her blood chilled. She quickly descended amongst the trees.

She watched from the dark.

The erratic barrier shifted. The constant spikes and dips in power within gave her pause. Not on and off, binary like chaos. Primal. Focused, yet unrestrained.

Like a ghost. Like… him.

An opening appeared at the top. What she took for his dark form flowed upward, higher and higher until it touched the clouds. The odor stung her nose, burned her lungs. An eruption? Here?

The skies grew dark. Shadows faded. A sickly light filled the dead glade. She looked back to the done, which melted to the ground.

The haze had thinned. A massive corpse fell. An ancient tree chopped at the roots. Luna watched the weathered, leather and lifeless face of a wurm sway over, where it crashed into the earth.

And before the body stood the killer. Its ethereal body shimmered in the broken light, surrounded in a veil of smoky magic. Scarlet, bloody. It wasn't him.

Her face paled.

“What have I done?”

***

In the charred remains of an old cabin, the Night Princess sifted. Unfamiliar, she aimlessly searched for a reason. In the collections and furniture and old letters, she found nothing.

In the hidden chamber, she found nothing as well, save for a single, broken stone, which was no bigger than her hoof. An ordinary rock.

She could only wonder what it revealed to the alicorn lost in her mind.

Comments

[TerraZeal]

This is an amazing story. I can't believe it doesn't have more reviews/thumbs up. Please do finish this! Cadance and Twilight are my favorite ponies in the show.

[Snowybee]

7195718

I thought it was a fun piece, so I'm glad you liked it! I'll see what I can do for a sequel; I've gotten the idea to write a mythos for Cadance and Twilight where they face their own demons, rather than nemeses of the sisters. We'll see how it goes.

[Starlight Nova]

Cadence will be badass in this story, right?

[Xzrea]

You know, this is really confusing. Maybe just for people like me you could. like, mark places where one hallucination turns into another?