The Call of the Wretched Sea

by Starlix

Redemption Lost

The wind howled in her ears, the pounding of her own hoof-falls muted beneath a thousand feet of snowfall. Twilight's breath came in raspy tirades, straining her lungs to their breaking point. The mare felt the blood gushing in her ears freeze as the blizzard tore every conviction straight out of her heart.

She lumbered on, the unconscious Rarity barely sticking to her back as Twilight struggled through the winter storm, its pounding intensity not even sending a shiver down the unconscious unicorn's spine. In the distance, the bay had all but iced over, its form completely clouded in the intense white out.

Twilight did't know how she knew it. The ship was ahead, that was all she knew.

Every shaking step brought the ship closer, the salvation that lie ahead called to her like a moth to a flame, and the Alicorn could do nothing but let the current pull her closer, like the ambient winds had dragged her wayward vessel towards damnation these past decades. Or was it centuries? Millennia?

Far behind her, the cave lie, yet for some horrifying reason Twilight felt as though it was still right on her back. The dark abyss of it's mouth threatening to drag her back into it's depths. Back to another one of the still forms of her old companions. Blood stuck to her tongue, the taste of marrow glued to the roof of her mouth, bile burning the back of her throat as the sensation of fur and hair rising with it from her stomach.

Snow began to completely cover Twilight, her wings sagged underneath it. Rarity was still there, hung underneath it's weight, unmoving, unfeeling.

The storm howled even more ferociously in her skull, the white abyss dragging her down into the snow. Her bones cracked, the skin froze, the Alicorn felt her her eyelids begin to stick. Memories of summer in a town she had long since forgotten filtered through her mind, the laughter of youth, the joy of ignorance. Between stills of happiness and unassumption flickers of a far more alien entity began to creep, laying seeds in her brain.

A white shape, enormous and all consuming. It let out a rumbling growl, a sorrowful note worming it's way into the perverse rumble. The hunt began again, the mass following her every memory, slipping between the flashes of her past life like a spectral parasite, eating away at every desperately clinging shred of sanity. Snow fell.

In the distance, the ghostly outline of her ship appeared, cast in a blackish light, consumed by snowy visions of the whale as it circled the vessel. All around the water had been frozen, except it left a purposeful alley of water untouched, the space of still water stretching out behind her forsaken vessel. Back into the sea, waiting for her.

Walking slowly, absentmindedly upon the snow covered ice, she made for the ropes, the path back onto her eternal prison.
Twilight's horn sparked to life almost without her call, lifting Rarity limply off her snow covered back. The Alicorn climbed the ropes with a practiced amount of hoof work. Once Rarity was lifelessly deposited on the deck, Twilight cast her eyes back over the side of the ship, back onto the glacial plains below.

The snow had stopped, the wind had faltered, only a haunting and ghostly silence remained. Ringing in the back of her mind, Twilight heard the call back in that sea, the whale was waiting for her. Without a look back her, the castaway climbed back off the moored ship, hitting the ice and crumbling as a bone snapped underneath the weight of her form.

She didn't make a sound.

Blinking blearily through the pain, the near lifeless Alicorn stared back across the plain, knowing deep within that the cave lie just behind her view. Without any hesitation in her steps, Twilight walked on, the creaking of wood, the cracking of teak behind giving her ample courage to continue onward.

Terror had seized her throat and numbed her brain to the realization that what she would find down there would be even worse than before.

As the plains expanded out before her, Twilight felt the bubbling of bile in her throat tickle her teeth. Swallowing hard, the alicorn lifted a hoof and bit into it. The taste of blood made her gag hard, heaving into the snow. The ringing croon of the whale had followed her out here again.

Snarling, Twilight felt new life enter her veins. The blood pumped free from her heart like fire, racing down her legs and into her wings, and with a silent scream she ran off into the building snow. A thought entered her head, one that spoke of the danger of letting the snowfall consume her a second time.

Twilight didn't know if anything could top her fate thus far, death certainly couldn't, but something primordial, that aching feeling of unease told her she didn't want to be consumed in this snow. That horrid feeling told her she might have that question answered for her if she did.

The snow storm amplified in intensity, clouding her vision once again in a sea of white. Twilight cursed under her breath, eyes scrambling to make out the shape of something in the snow, anything to give reprieve of this horrid snow. She would've done well to watch her step.

Crying out, Twilight sunk into the ledge of a hidden snowbank, tumbling through it and falling far into the ravine below. Somewhere along the way the Alicorn fainted, waking up groggy and in pain. Gasping numbly at the feeling of her fur and skin cracking from her movements, Twilight whimpered and pushed herself upright. While she rose, several pounds of freshly reddened snow fell off her back.

The storm had vanished, leaving Twilight staring up into the dark interior of a cave, not dissimilar to the one before, moreover, this one appeared far larger, it's gaping mouth shattering her resolve into pieces. Twilight trembled, though not because of the blistering cold.

A bolt of lightning shot through her skull, making her cry out loudly in agony. The flash of a memory lanced through her skull. Visions of cyan, the memory of a friend long since forgotten to time. A scratchy voice, weak from from hunger and raspy from thirst. It's signature bravado lost in the blazing heat of the sun.

A feeling she hadn't felt in so long. It was almost completely alien to her. Down in that cave was someone she couldn't leave there, she knew that they would've done the same for her had she been given the chance.

Almost of their own accord, shaking limbs took her deeper into the expansive mouth of the cave. The dim interior seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. Twilight forced the lump in her throat down, walking numbly into the cold blackness below. Glancing over her shoulder, Twilight paused in muted horror.

Just barely in the distance now, over a mile over her shoulder, the dim light of the outside world peeked through the tiny crack in the wall that was once a massive hole nearly right behind her. Trepidation gripped her lungs in a vice grip. The air itself seemed to freeze, dragging any confidence and conviction she had before into the unforgiving darkness all around her.

Just when it seemed the oppressive darkness and biting cold was going to silence her forever, a familiar scratchy laugh echoed deep in the cave before her.

Twilight froze, eyes immediately training in the direction of the noise. More images burned in her mind, images of a cocky smile, bright ruby eyes, and a mane the color of a vibrant rainbow. Memories she had buried far below the reaches of her own waking mind surged to the surface.

The alicorn collapsed and screamed in unfathomable terror as they overwhelmed her fragile mental barrier.

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Rainbow Dash rushed after her, the Pegasus easily overtaking the alicorn in barely an instant. Her mane was frazzled and her eyes were wild.

"Twilight, it's gone! It's already..." The cyan pegasus trailed off as her friend's eyes locked on something behind her. A titanic wave of water rushed over the mountains, spilling into the valley destroying everything in it's path. "Oh my Celestia." The pegasus's signature bravado was gone, replaced by a hollow fear.

Without waiting for her to react, Twilight grabbed the terrified mare in her magic, teleporting them both as far away as possible. The alicorn didn't even have time to think of her next course of action, sending them both to the place where the rest of their friends had been hiding out.

A small harbor town on the other side of the continent. They had failed. Failed in their mission to secure the last element of harmony before the waves enveloped Ponyville. The surge of magic needed to teleport both her and Dash hundreds of miles momentarily turned her brain to mush and she had passed out before the teleportation matrix had even finished stabilizing after the jump.

When she came to, the concerned face of Dash stared down at her, a hollow sadness in her eyes. What came next was the senses of hearing, the sobbing of the other elements, Rarity and Applejack clinging to each other. Rarity sobbed about her sister into Applejack's mane, the latter shedding several tears herself as she stroked the purple mane of her more emotional friend.

Pinkie was staring blankly forward, a detached expression on her face as she stared into space. Behind her, Fluttershy lay curled up in the pink mare's tail, trembling while tiny whimpers escaped her. Twilight's mind was sluggish to return to reality, but the mare rather quick to become fully lucid again.

"I'm okay Dash, just a bit groggy." She gave a shaky smile to the pegasus who for her part just looked unconvinced. Her ruby eyes twinkled with tears, thought in her case they stayed still that way, tears not falling from the pools of red.

"What now?" The question echoed in her brain. Truly, what now.....

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The pain in Twilight's head was immense, worse than anything she could remember, worse than any pain her body had suffered aboard her derelict ship. Breath coming in shallow gulps, Twilight tried to think, tried to recall where she was. Fuzziness cluttered her thoughts.

Images of red and blue echoed across her shattered mental space, a space that suddenly seemed much larger and emptier than before. Rainbow Dash.

Her friend. Yes that was it.

She was here for her.

Twilight's ears rung and the mare felt her heart racing under her emaciated form, blood gushing in gallons through her body. With a strength she hadn't felt in centuries, the alicorn surged to her hooves, nearly leaping back to a standing position.

With her eyes adjusted, the cave seemed truly even more cavernous than before, it's depth looming on for miles. Carved into the walls, the cave descended downwards into multiple forks and pathways. A sudden realization hit her.

"There could be millions of different pathways in here." She trembled as the idea came suddenly to her. Fear gripped her, leaving her paralyzed once again. Chose the wrong path and who knows how long she'd be down here, wandering though the dark. Aimless, until her body completely broke down, or worse, that her mind was be gone before her body did.

Thousands of years stuck in hell, desperately searching for a way out of the dark, just to be brought back into the hell above, the looming sea that awaited what remained of her.

Twilight let the renewed clarity she had gained win out, slapping herself hard in the cheek. The stinging pain and dull ringing in her head brought her mind back to reality as it were. The alicorn's previous self shone through a bit, picking out a plan and letting it form naturally.

What would Dash have done. That was the real question.

Twilight's thoughts were still split, her mind fragile and shaken, but if what she remembered about Dash held true, the pegasus's first choice would've been the closest split in the cave. Scanning her eyes through the darkness, Twilight felt that lingering terror grip her bones once more.

The scale of the cavern she found herself in truly was imposing beyond all reason. A shaky breath left her burning lungs, echoing loudly in the silent cave. The noise itself seemed to echo back impossibly loud, it's reverb shaking her to the core.

In no rush to stick around, Twilight ran to the nearest hole in the wall, tears pricking her dry eyes as a presence seemed to loom right behind her, following her every step. Terrified, the alicorn shrieked, horn glowing ominously as she ran, yet the specter kept on her back. Words began to whisper into her ears, impossibly loud against the backdrop of her own heavy breathing and the dull thudding of her hooves racing across the cold stone ground.

"We have no choice" It whispered in an all to familiar voice, that of her own, yet not tinged with the desperation and horror that she knew she had once spoken them in. "This ship is cursed" The gleeful malice in it's voice was oh so wrong.

"And so are we."

When she was close enough, Twilight threw herself down the hole, sliding uncontrollably down the steep incline. The mare cried out in pain as her body scraped painfully along the rough stones. She tumbled for another few minutes, bones snapping and flesh breaking open upon every sharp break in the fall before it further plummeted down into the earth.

The fall suddenly broke upon the snowy floor below, Twilight groaning weakly in pain. She was content just to lay there, letting the throbbing pain and sharp stinging in her body replace the horrid dread of the specter from before, the life slowly draining from her body.

A voice whispered unintelligibly in her ear suddenly, yet it wasn't the terrifying imitation of her own from above. The soft yet scratchy voice calmed her aching mind. The voice left her remembering the time before, however the visions of the past didn't come at the cost of mind numbing pain or with a guilt and remorse thick enough to span entire lifetimes.

This voice spoke of warmth and of friendship, of hopes for the future and joy over the past that had been spent together. Twilight saw images of journeys through forests, memories of fighting off evil and pain with her friends in tow.

Beyond this veil she saw the smiling face of Rainbow Dash, her ruby eyes sparking with confidence and pride, looking over her shoulder as she taught her new flying buddy her way through the skies. The clouds separated around them as they soared over the land below, houses as small as stones and people the size of grains of sand.

Following closely behind, stills of them wandering through cities and towns, talking and laughing as they beheld whatever caught their eyes. Journeys through unfamiliar places not wrought with fear but with reassurance and comfort in their mutual companionship.

Red began to tinge her vision as these flashes of the past began to darken. Fear spilled over into reality. A wave consumed them all, happiness ended, sorrow and fear overtook. Where before the comfort of companionship had been constant, isolation and disassociation replaced it.

Freedom died, trapped on a vessel, tiny and listless before what had been their entire world to explore. For all that they had done, redemption had lost their way, lost before the endless sea.

In the seeds of madness, Twilight felt the memories bloom, breaking free of their chained confinement, lashing out cutting her mind to shreds. Staring at the corpse of the Pegasus, dead from hunger and disease, hunger had broken their senses and morality. A moment of weakness followed. The teeth gnaw on her bones for the next two weeks.

Twilight sobbed, guilt and repressed remorse racking her frame, crying out in sorrow, mumbling apologies to the dead silence before her. Her voice went hoarse from screaming and crying and her body went still, too weak to continue.

In the silence, the whispers began, however they were not the perverted incantations of her own voice. What spoke to her in the cold silence was the warm, scratchy voice of her friend from a past life, it's voice mumbled and unintelligible, but filled with understanding. Twilight slowly lifted her heavy head, hoping against hope to see a figure made of cyan standing before her, those warm eyes gazing at her with forgiveness and kindness.

It wasn't to be, for the only thing before her was a blackened shape, grinning in unrestrained malice as it stared right into her frozen eyes with it's own glowing ruby ones, a horrid low rumbling in it's throat shaking the earth....