The Knight

by TheStoveHater

A Worrisome Situation

__________ Unknown Time, Unknown Place __________

Deep underground, so deep that the very planet's inner fire could be felt, a monster of pure obsidian raged. It screamed and roared its hate loud enough to make the walls of its cage tremble, slamming into the walls with a fury that rivaled the heat from the molten earth flowing beneath and around it...

High above, watching with an eager smile and a fire in her eye, the Queen of the Sun stood. Watching nearby, her sister stood in unnatural shadows, seemingly untouched by the light cast from the rivers of super heated earth below. After a moment the Sun Queen turned towards her sister, her flaming mane flickering about in excitement. "When shall it be ready, Dear Sister?" She said with a grin, even her fiery aura unable to penetrate her sister's cloak of shadows.

"It shall not be." The Queen of the Moon said simply, her dark blue eyes unwavering as her sisters mane crackled and grew, a deep frowning replacing the Sun Queens wicked grin.

"What do you mean 'It shall not be'!?" The Sun Queen growled, stomping a hoof and making the earthen platform tremble beneath them. "You PROMISED a weapon of destruction! Of UNSTOPPABLE POWER! Is yon creature not such agreed upon weapon!?" She roared, her mane whipping into a fiery frenzy, sparks and flames shooting from underneath the Sun Queen's hooves.

The Queen of the Moon shook her head slowly, undisturbed by her Sister's outrage. "Yon creature is barely held together fury, only existing due to Our constant magical influence. Even with Our influence it rages uncontrollably, should yonder creature set upon the surface, t'would only set itself upon Our own troops and subjects." With a sigh the Moon Queen lit her horn, finally parting the shadows around her, and all at once the creatures roars died, looking below the two Queens saw the monster, but it was only an obsidian carving, no longer with the fire of life in its body.

"We have spoken time and time again of what it shall take to control such a creature..." The Moon Queen said quietly, looking back to her Sister. Instantly the Queen of the Sun's mane cooled, and she jerked her head back around to her Sister.

With a low hiss she stepped forward "No. Thou shalt not sacrifice one of OUR SUBJECTS for one of thine experiments, We agreed upon a creature that would protect them, and destroy Our enemies. Not subject them to a life of Slavery... Not again, and especially not by Us..." With that the Sun Queen turned and teleported out of the now quiet chamber, leaving the Moon Queen to herself.

The Moon Queen stared at the place her Sister had disappeared from, whispering "Then I shall have no choice but to look for another place to find a Soul... One outside of this plane..."

_______________________________________

Are you suuuuure they're searching for us? I asked, having exhausted my only means of entertaining myself almost an hour ago.

My other half, guiding our gauntlet forward stealthily, ignored me. It had been roughly an hour and a half by the time the castle came into view, the tip of the last still standing tower rising above the forest ominously. For a moment my other half perched us atop a tree, allowing us to see more of the castle, including the giant hole blasted by that rainbow weapon, staring off into the distance, almost like he was... Reminiscing!? Could this be!? Could he be displaying a hint of emotion other than rage, blind devotion, and cold fury!?

After a moment of baited mental breath, I started to question my other half, only for him to speak. "...Excellent. The rest of Our body is now located at the top of yon tower, formerly Our Queen's bedchambers." Guess not. Really? That's why you stopped? You're not even mildly upset that the castle we spent forever protecting now has a giant hole in it? I asked, exasperated.

"Nay. We watched as it fell apart, no doubt thy memory is so flawed that thee do not remember its collapse, only its former glory... But We do." My other half remarked in a matter of fact way, as if discussing nothing more than a new stump we had passed upon our walk. "Thou most likely doth not remember the four centuries We served Our Queen in it either."

Four centuries...? I asked quietly, staring at the castle that felt familiar to me, but other than the time we had spent guarding it, I couldn't say why it actually felt familiar... Only that it felt good to be around its old stones, I had thought that it was due to the Queen's order that I felt that way, but when I looked at it I felt sad that it was a crumbling wreck.

My other half shook us from my stupor as we once again started moving, once more dropping below the practically seamless canopy, not even rays of moonlight penetrating its leaves in most places.

__________________________________________

Sub-Sonic, Captain of the Companion Guard, Leader of Her Majesty's Wings, Her Unflinching Talons, Her Highness's Strong Left Hoof, and a dozen other names, was... Scared wasn't the right word, she was trained to never feel fear... She was... Concerned... With her surroundings.

Everywhere about her was gloom, indistinct shapes glowered from within the tunnel, shadows within shadows seemed to move every so slightly when she looked away, and an all encompassing feeling of wrongness filled her stomach... With her spear held out levelly, she scanned her surroundings, after nothing leaped out at her she started forward, but paused.

She had taken a single slow, measured step, and her hoof now rested on something very un-stone like, it was metallic, and made a soft noise as it bumped against her hoof guard. Frowning she squinted into the darkness, even her enhanced vision barely helping, the only source of light seemingly coming from the end of the tunnel, and as such it gave her eyes very little to work with. Glancing around again she slowly reached down, gripping the object in her free hoof, she lifted it up into what little light was provided from the end of the tunnel.

Her breath froze in her lungs, and she stared, her spear going slack in her wing's grip, the metal tip striking loudly against stone. Sub-Sonic continued staring, her mind simultaneously running a million hooves a second yet not moving, and it wasn't until her lungs started to scream for air that she acted, jerking back, her wings flared, propelling her away from the object and into the air. She remembered to grab her spear before she took off, and flew upwards, her eyes searching about frantically, her spear rigidly pointing at any and all shadows that were too dark for her to see in to.

Still not seeing any assailants, she calmed only marginally, her wings beating near silently as she spun in place, searching for any way out. After several minutes of searching, she realized no new path had opened, neither had her squad bucked down the wall to get to her, in fact nothing had changed. The only difference was that she was now flying, and the object she had picked up now sat in what little light there was, staring up at her...

___________________________

It was quiet... Toooo quiet... So quiet one would might have been able to hear half a suit of armor making its way through the forest and towards an old decrepit castle... Yet, none did, or at least no one attempted to stop us. I was amusing myself by counting the stars, when I could see them through the foliage, when suddenly I could see the sky in its entirety...

Aaah much better, now, what number was I up to...? Ah well I suppose I'll have to star-

"We've arrived, fool, quit thy blathering and pay attention." If I had a mouth I would frown, but instead I simply redirected my attention on the clearing in front of us.

Once again we had returned to the castle, but this time we stayed inside the treeline, looking for any assailants that might be watching or waiting for us. After a few minutes we started to move once more, circling around to the side of the castle with the hole blasted out. "We shall enter, retrieve the rest of Our body, then We shall show these foolish Solar Ponies why We art to be feared! My other half said quietly, our one gauntlet clenched into a fist as we stared up at the giant hole.

Erm... Pardon me... I said with a mental frown. How exactly are we t-

"I said quiet Fool! How are We to climb if thou blather on!"

At that we started to move towards the wall, dragging our self through the dirt as we had done so all throughout the night. Well if you want to, b-

"Enough! I shall hear no more of thy pointless words!" With that I sunk in to a silent pout, if I had both arms I would have crossed them, if I had a tongue I would have given him a raspberry! Here I was simply trying to help, and the cad wouldn't even acknowledge the issue!

___________________________

Sub-Sonic's heart had returned to a relatively normal level, and wasn't currently trying to escape her rib cage. Yet still she was on edge, with her senses were on overdrive, her ears flicked back and forth wildly while her nose tried to pick out anything other than the dry, stale air that permeated the area.

Taking several slow, deep breaths Sub-Sonic slowly returned to the floor, her back pressed to the wall to ensure nopony would attempt to assail her from the rear, she scanned her area once more, pointedly avoiding looking at the object on the floor. Yet still she saw nothing, her eyes could pick nothing new out from the gloom, nor could her ears hear anything besides her own breathing, and the staccato beat of her heart.

After what feels like hours of vigilance and nothing to show for it, Sub-Sonic finally lowered her spear and slumped forward, her adrenaline running its course and leaving her feeling tired and weary. Grabbing her canteen, and with an eye still on her surroundings, starts to drink, the magically cooled water slides down her throat like an elixir of life. Taking a deep breath and replacing the canteen along her barrel Sub-Sonic takes a cautious step forward, hesitantly looking down at the object she had picked up earlier.

Sitting in front of her was a helmet, old and with rust chewing at the edges, it was fully enclosed for the most part, having only a narrow set of slits for the eyes, and a long beak like mask for a ponies muzzle. It was clearly made with a pony in mind, even having the vestiges of set of rusted neck mail that had fallen to pieces. Yet it was still vaguely familiar, she was sure she had seen it in old history books, but could not recall the name, pattern, or even the era in which it had served. Now here it sat, it was hard to tell what color it was, but judging from the shade of grey, it was either deep blue or black, not that it mattered, for it was what was inside that bothered her most...

Grinning at her from what remained of the muzzle guard was a skull, what had once been a face now had a large hole, right above the upper teeth, extending through the eyes, and out the back. The metal was blackened and melted where, what was most likely had been a spell, had entered, and the bone hand simply been burned away, leaving an almost neat hole straight through it. The bones were clean, no doubt having been here for quite some time, and had been picked clean by something.

Three things stood out to Sub-Sonic when she gazed upon this helmet and skull, one was a question personal to her, one was a question she was worried to know the answer to, and one that chilled her to the core... And right now, only the latter concerned her... What were the rest of the odd shapes and objects that hid just inside the shadows ahead...?

Author's Note:

IM NOT DEAD WOO

No but seriously I do apologize, I was just being incredibly lazy. It wasn't until I realized it had been nearly 2 years since this thing had gotten a new chapter that I really started working on it. I had been working on it off and on, but never to a super serious extent.

That said there is probably a lot of spelling and grammar errors, which I will attempt to correct the day after this chapter is released, but for now I just want to get a new chapter out.

Comments

[Fireeaters]

oof

[Noname8]

IT LIVES!

HUZZAH

Nice chapter! Im glad to see this story continued