One final star
Surrounded on all sides, outnumbered and overwhelmed, Dandelia Lion Lulamoon calmly considered her options and evaluated every advantage she had at her disposal. There was a fountain full of water, which was potentially useful. She was no great and powerful hydromancer, in fact, she barely had a connection to water at all, but she could do a little water shaping if the need arose.
In the distance, there was an explosion, and a pillar of bright orange fire rose into the sky. She did not let this distract her, but she did notice how skittish the pseudo-alicorns were. Feathers were now ruffled and heads turned in every direction as the whole herd of them became spooked. For all their talk of godhood, for all of their boasts of superiourity, they were still weak, pathetic equines unable to rise above their base nature.
Why, Beatrix could be around explosions and not even flinch.
As she prepared herself for the inevitable, she thought of Night Light and Twilight Velvet. She loved them—even if she had trouble saying it—and she wished that things had been different. There were a lot of things that she wished had been different. Over the course of her lifetime, the world had changed, it had done so drastically, dramatically, and she found that she could not. The old ways were dying off and the pony most responsible for the recent upheaval was right here in front of her, lost in contemplation, muttering something about wealth and compound interest.
They had once been cordial with one another. She had worked as her father’s assistant, as his secretary, and as such, she and Mariner had spent a great deal of time together. A pang of regret caused her stomach to twist into painful knots. He was a living calculator, as some earth ponies tended to be, and she had long suspected that the true nature of his magical talent was securing himself. His anchor mark had long been something of an enigma to her.
Caper had once said that a ship was only as good as its anchor.
She started everything by winking away, and reappearing further up the street. The false-alicorns were perturbed by this, and when she saw their blank, confused stares, she felt both revulsion and contempt for them. She milked her contempt, hoping for hatred, and before any of them could react, she launched a fireball into the midst of the largest gathered group.
Fireball spells were adaptable and versatile, with most of them unique to the wizard, a signature of sorts. Lulamoon Hollow had issues with trolls. Normally, trolls avoided dark places, and being part plant, sought out places with lots of sunlight. But Lulamoon Hollow was filled with delicious ponies, and so trolls came a-calling upon the shadowy sanctuary that Dandelia called home.
From a young age, it had been her responsibility to deal with troll incursions—it was standard wizard work, and a great chance to gain skill. She had started off with a typical standard-issue fireball spell, as most apprentices do, and over time, she had tweaked the spell’s framework to suit her needs. Trolls were vulnerable to fire, very much so, but a fireball didn’t always kill them outright. Sometimes, they ran about willy-nilly while on fire, screaming trollish profanities, and this was always a headache.
So, after much trial and error, Dandelia had added a secondary element to her fireball: a caustic cloud element that billowed out from the epicenter of the fiery detonation. Trolls caught in the blast were not only set ablaze, but also began dissolving rapidly. It was a good spell, one that Dandelia felt truly captured her brilliance and showcased her magical prowess.
A tiny pea-sized blob of greenish flame flew towards the unsuspecting pseudo-alicorns…
Despicable Dark had been a fine, if a little cruel, teacher. An advocate for brutality—a strong, firm hoof was needed when it came to establishing order over unruly peasants—she could almost hear his voice right now. What a voice he had, a voice of cold, cruel perfection, with no trace of emotion, feeling—or empathy. Despicable had spent his whole life as a teacher in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and it was said that upon the day of his retirement, the entire school had heaved a collective sigh of relief. He was the disciplinarian, Lord of Detention, He of the Dastardly Demerits.
From a young age, Dandelia wanted to be just like him.
As the miniscule poof of greenish flame closed the distance, she shouted, “Dirty peasants! You don’t even know what you threaten!” As she spoke, the spell detonated within the crowd and in an eyeblink, half a dozen false-alicorns were set ablaze and a wicked green cloud spread amongst their number.
The other pseudo-alicorns began screeching as their brethren both burned and dissolved. Some ran for cover, others flew away, and as for Mariner himself, he raised a glittering bubble of magic around himself. Dandelia might have been impressed that an earth pony had learned magic, that is if she wasn’t trying to kill him at the moment.
Old Despicable Dark was a cantankerous sort, mean-spirited, and absolutely, totally, completely loyal to Princess Celestia. The old coot was paranoid of uprisings—both from students and from Equestria at large. His life had been spent preparing to put down said uprising, and he’d dabbled in the most destructive of the wizardly arts. She had learned much from him, and today, she was determined to do him proud. The uprising was here, just as he had forseen, and with him gone, dead, and sealed away in a Lulamoon crypt, it fell upon her to deal with these unruly peasants.
“Vile, dirty peasants!” she cried as she hurled another one of her signature fireballs.
Screams echoed up and down the urban canyon, bouncing from building to building. Mariner was fleeing to a more defensive position. Dandelia’s magic sense told her that cracking his shield would be a demanding task, one that would allow no distractions. She brought the water of the fountain to life, it slapped against the stones of its container and sloshed into an enormous ball, which went rolling down the boulevard in hot pursuit of the fleeing false-alicorns.
It was quite a sight to see a twenty-foot wide ball of water rolling down the street, behaving in a way that water shouldn’t. One of the pseudo-alicorns stopped to stare, and this was his undoing. Bloop! As the water-blob rolled over him, he was pulled inside by the rampaging liquidious monster.
“Wretched peasants!”
Dandelia willed the water to move faster. It crushed wagons left in the street and bore down upon the fleeing miscreants with one of their number trapped within, slowly drowning. Her shock and awe was wildly successful; these dimwitted peasants were awestruck by her prowess, her command of magic, the thaumaturgical birthright that guaranteed her right to rule.
The fireballs had done significant damage. Quite a number of the pseudo-alicorns were now burning and dissolving. They rolled around on the street, trying to quell the flames, but nothing could be done about the caustic gas, which melted steel, crumbled concrete, and turned the asphalt soupy. The poor ponies not on fire, but trapped in the cloud, they melted like candles. Eyes oozed from sockets, ears were sloughed off, feathers fell like snowflakes, all while skin bubbled and blistered.
There would be no mercy, not today. No kneeling, no groveling, no prostrating. A firm hoof was needed. An example had to be made. The peasants needed a reminder of their place. For too long, they had grown insolent. Petulant. Because discipline was lax, the sacred order had been upended, and this, this was the end result. These miscreants had tampered with a sacred power that they were incapable of understanding, and to make matters worse, they now had blasphemous bodies that were a pale imitation of Equestria’s rightful rulers.
“HERETICAL PEASANTS!” she shrieked, outraged to the point of spitting her words.
At last, the blob of water caught up with the fleeing false-alicorns, and slurped them up as it rolled over them. They could be seen swimming inside, flailing about, trapped in the middle but unable to reach the surface. A great deal of debris had also been picked up as the water-minion had rolled along, things like shards of glass, broken planks from smashed wagons, and all manner of pointy, unpleasant things.
With but a thought, the enormous sphere of water froze solid, trapping those inside in an airless, burningly cold Tartarus. Dandelia hoped that they would die slowly, with much pain. Though it was too heavy to lift with telekinesis, the Come to Life spell allowed for much mobility, even in the water’s current frozen form. She set it moving once more, a big almost-opaque bowling ball with bodies trapped inside. It moved with terrific speed, a thundering, blundering colossus that made an indescribable sound as it came tearing along the roadway, crushing everything in its path.
If the water was a bowling ball, Mariner’s former headquarters was a bowling pin.
“Why would you do this?” Mariner’s magically amplified voice was screechy, shrill with outrage and shock. “Why would you do this!”
Sensing incoming magic, Dandelia reinforced her own protections and focused her willpower into her wards. The telekinetic bolts were powerful, dangerous, all brute force. She sensed no real skill, just bullets of mostly psychic energy with just a hint of magic. While dangerous, she could mitigate this threat, if not nullify it outright.
The streaming psychic projections converged upon Dandelia’s location, but she vanished, only to reappear again, this time on a balcony overlooking the street down below. Just in time, too, as the elevated position allowed her to view the massive ball of ice smashing into Mariner’s former headquarters. It smashed through the glass in the front, collapsing support struts, rending steel beams in twain, and demolished the lobby in a spectacular display of superiour wizardry.
Then, it exploded like a bomb, shattering into smithereens. The blast was such that the skyscraper swayed, rocking back and forth in the sort of unsettling way that skyscrapers never should. Mariner was screaming wordlessly now, a high-pitched, throaty scream that could have been agony or anger—or both.
Dandelia reveled in her destruction.
Weird sounds could be heard now, something that was almost like whalesong mixed with somepony playing a saw. It came from inside Mariner’s tower, the surreal music of metal fatigue. As it swayed to and fro, weakened by the blast that rocked its foundations, it sang a curious, sorrowful song, which provided a surreal soundtrack to this absurd moment.
The false-alicorns recovered, they regrouped, and now, led by Mariner, they began their assault in earnest. Dandelia’s magical sense was almost overwhelmed by the sheer power that she felt, and for a moment, she feared sensory-overload. Gritting her teeth, she reminded herself that she was not fighting true alicorns, but charlatan peasants masquerading as alicorns.
She vanished, winking away, and the balcony she had been standing on mere seconds ago was obliterated. When she reappeared, she was immediately under fire, and was forced to relocate once more, all while Mariner’s tower sang a sorrowful, melancholy song. While surprise had given her advantage during the start of the fight, Mariner’s incensed rage now gave him the upper hoof. Everywhere she blinked, every spot that she winked, each and every one of them were destroyed as she escaped to another.
Forced to keep moving, Dandelia had trouble returning fire.
Reinforcements came, pouring out of the swaying tower like ants from a disturbed mound. The intense cold of the ice bomb had done something awful to the foundation of the building, the outcome of which was still unknown. Dandelia found herself in a bad situation that grew worse with each passing second.
With the few precious seconds she had before she had to blink away again, she lobbed off a caustic fireball, another, and then a third. One of these struck the corner of Mariner’s tower, which began to slowly dissolve as the greenish gas billowed forth, spread by the fiery detonation. More of the pseudo-alicorns fell, victims of either the flames, the caustic gas, or both.
As more and more of them died, being the brilliant mare that she was, Dandelia could not help but notice that her enemy seemed to gain and grow in strength. What monstrous rage fueled them; what great desperation drove them to such extremes. They utterly lacked in finesse, but excelled in brute force.
For the first time, Dandelia understood that she was in trouble.
Would her defenses hold during a stand up fight?
Many of them did not behave like unicorns, and most certainly not Mariner. They did not move, but stood still, for the most part. Because of some flaw in their design, they had trouble flying and performing magic at the same time; they could do one, but not the other. Mariner was advancing now, brazenly moving about in the open. Something about his cocky confidence infuriated Dandelia, and she poured her fury into her magic.
Though it was costly, and potentially her undoing, Dandelia cast Spell Mirror with a specific focus on mental magics. The spell drained her and she could feel the fatigue gnawing away at her mind. Hunger pangs made her stomach growl, and a quiet, sleepy voice in the back of her mind demanded that she nap. Then, with Spell Mirror protecting her, she used her magic to root herself to the ground. Spell Mirror would reflect psychokinetic energy away from her body, but without rooting, she could still conceivably be shoved around even if her body was unharmed, due to the quirky nature of physics.
The incoming blasts were deflected, but Dandelia could sense the sheer, raw force of them. Safe, if only for the moment, Dandela began to cast a complex summoning spell. It was something that she’d never actually cast before, but knew in theory. More and more telekinetic bolts bounced away from her, and with each of them flying in random directions, some of them flew towards the pseudo-alicorns surrounding her.
Mariner took a direct blow and his barrier shield rippled, but held. He did fly backwards, however, and tumbled for almost a half-a-city block. This served to confirm Dandelia’s theory, all brute force, and no finesse. Knowing magic, understanding magic, she had rooted herself to the spot to prevent such a blunder.
Rubble began to move about as a small whirlwind took shape. Wind converged with earth, and earth melded with fire. Steel, bricks, stones, and chunks of asphalt swirled in the whirlwind, which ignited with vivid blue flames. The tri-elemental roared, somehow doing so without a mouth, and something about the sound was utterly terrifying.
So much so that Dandelia’s concentration broke.
With the lapse in concentration, her connection to the tri-elemental was severed, and her control was lost. This was bad; this was exceedingly bad, and the explicit reason as to why conjuring elementals was frowned upon. They took exceptional control, and if for some reason this failed, a rampaging elemental would be set loose, just like now. It was a monster that she had no hope of fighting, but then again, Mariner and his crew had no chance either.
Lashing out, the tri-elemental skewered a false-alicorn with a white-hot steel strut and set her ablaze. Many of the Ascension alicorns now ignored Dandelia completely to deal with this new threat, and they focused their fire upon the havoc-wreaking tri-elemental. It was growing in size, the unchained elemental, gaining mass as its vortex body tore up the road beneath it.
Dandelia focused on Mariner, who was no longer focused on her. His ignorance left him vulnerable. For all of his might and power, he was still just an earth pony. He had not grown up as a unicorn and lacked understanding of the minute mechanics of magic. She unloaded a massive telekinetic blast of her own and felt a rush of satisfaction when Mariner was once more knocked off of his hooves. His barrier spell protected his body, but she could sense that it was weakening. Again she fired, hoping to catch him before he recovered, while he was still down, down on the ground where he belonged.
Unfortunately, Mariner was quick to recover. After the second blast pushed him back, his body scraping against the trash-strewn street, he rose up with a furious nimbus surrounding his horn. Dandelia braced herself, and had faith that her protections would hold. The blast she expected never came though, as a random telekinetic bolt was reflected by her Spell Mirror, and by fortuitous circumstance, struck Mariner as he started to cast.
His shot went wide and blasted a massive, gaping hole into the front of the building off to Dandelia’s left. The building shuddered, it wobbled, and then a torrent of bricks poured down like water as the structural integrity of the building gave way. The whole front of the building collapsed, and mere seconds after the front gave way, with no supports to hold them, the sides of the building failed as well. As the sides fell inward, floors came crashing down atop one another, and dreadful screams could be heard from within the crumbling structure.
Dust and debris filled the air, along with smoke. The stench of burned hair and feathers almost made the air unbreathable. As the brick building buckled, crushing its own foundation, Dandelia ignored it, she was deaf to the pitiful screams within, such was her focus on Mariner. This had to end somehow—though how was anypony’s guess.
Psychokinetic energy alone wasn’t enough. Mariner’s barrier would not be so easily cracked. He was too-well shielded from psychic force projections. What she needed was raw physical force to bust his shield, and she was surrounded by bricks on all sides. Reaching out with her mind, she lifted dozens of bricks and then gave one of them a telekinetic flick. There was a shockwave as the brick broke the sound barrier, and Dandelia’s hearing faded in and out because she’d done nothing to protect herself from the sound.
The brick missed, though narrowly. Mariner was on the move now, panicked, no doubt frightened by the idea of being struck by a missile flying faster than his eye could see. Dandelia prepared another brick. They had to be hurled, not guided by telekinesis. If even the merest hint of telekinetic influence was on the brick, a psychokinetic barrier would arrest the momentum, thus rendering it harmless.
She flicked another brick, there was a thunderclap as it exploded past the sound barrier, and faster than the eye could blink, Mariner was struck. His barrier spell shattered and blood fountained from his nostrils as the psychokinetic backlash scrambled his brains. Most unicorns would outright die from such trauma, but not Mariner. Somehow, he stood, and seemed to be recovering, even though torrents of scarlet liquid gushed from his nostrils.
His horn sparked and Dandelia was almost giddy with sadistic glee.
The rampaging tri-elemental kept most of the other pseudo-alicorns busy, or at least distracted, leaving Dandelia free to deal with Mariner. Once friends, they were now enemies, though not for much longer. Sensing weakness, Dandelia fully expected to kill him. It was a matter of time. Skill would rule over brute force.
A third brick was flicked; again, thunder pealed through the urban canyons, structures shivered, windows cracked and shattered, and more bricks were shook loose from the ruined building off to Dandelia’s left. Mariner’s left wing vanished. One second, it was there, he had it extended to help him with his balance, and the next, it was gone. His eyes were wide with shock and horror, and no doubt pain as well. A wordless, gurgling moan escaped from his lips, completely unheard by Dandelia, who was deafened.
It was a lucky hit, for certain.
A particularly powerful blast struck Dandelia, though not one from Mariner. Her Spell Mirror faltered, and after a second, fizzled out. All of her senses felt slowed, her thoughts were like molasses, and it occurred to her that she was dazed. It took several seconds to realise that her legs were wobbling, that her knees threatened to buckle. Her lip was curiously wet. When she breathed, she sniffled, there was a gross snorgling sound, and she could taste copper in the back of her throat. The left side of her body felt weak; far too weak, and she realised that she had trouble seeing out of her right eye.
What had happened?
There was a roar all around her, an almost crushing force that pressed in on her body from all sides. A moment later, her hooves were yanked from the ground and her sluggish eyelids blinked a few times from befuddled confusion as she rose up into the air. With her heart pounding in her chest, the taste of copper on her tongue, and her curious sensation of weightlessness, Dandelia wondered if she was dying.
Dandelia Lion Lulamoon saw sunflowers. Brilliant, beautiful sunflowers as far as the eye could see. A sea of sunflowers, all of them waving, swaying back and forth beneath an eternal sun. Her cutie mark was a sunflower, a reminder that her bloodline was infused with Sunfire blood—Princess Celestia’s blood—the very embodiment of goodness, so it could be said.
Though that bloodline had fallen upon hard times.
The sunflowers tickled her sides, they swayed and shimmied against her. She was warm now, her body awash with pleasant sensations. These sunflowers were giants, or perhaps, she was very small. Was she a foal again? That seemed possible. When she was little, Princess Celestia had called her a precious little sunflower. Dandelia had been a rambunctious sprout, and she had grown tall and powerful with Princess Celestia’s nurturing guidance.
Dandelia Lion Lulamoon...
“Who’s there?” she asked, her voice squeaky and shrill.
You knew me once, when you were innocent, when you were still a vessel for goodness.
“Who are you? What are you?” She turned about, but there was nothing but sunflowers all round her, and soft, rich dirt beneath her hooves.
I am an infinite number of tears shed that have flowed into the soil. Tears that come from a soul consumed by sorrow. Hundreds of years of tears, a river of tears, enough tears that earth was turned to mud from weeping. You might say that the liquified essence of a truly benevolent soul impregnated the fertile earth, and from that, I was conceived.
“Where am I, and why am I here?”
A choice must be made, Dandelia.
“How can I make a choice when I don’t know who or what you are?”
You strayed from goodness, Dandelia, and in doing so, silenced me.
“Goodness never did me much good,” she said to whatever was listening.
All around her, the sunflowers rustled, almost as if they were sighing. A confusing jumble of images danced within her mind; crumbling buildings, a rampaging elemental, a flood of bricks, burning fires—and pain. So much pain. But the pain was vague and rather difficult to remember.
“Goodness left me weak. It got me abused. I was a filly all alone, surrounded by those who despised weakness—”
Despised goodness, you mean.
“The two don’t seem so different. I sought power so I could rid myself of weakness.”
You dabbled in darkness, Dandelia, and in doing so, silenced me.
She stood, listening to the sighing sunflowers, and wondered what the point of all this was. What purpose this served. Her magic sense didn’t seem to be working, but she had other senses now, ones that she wasn’t familiar with. Turning her head to and fro, she tried to make sense of her surroundings, she looked up, and then looked down.
Looking down, she noticed the small silver thread protruding from her chest, and saw that it connected her to the soil upon which she stood. It was a curious thing, rather glowy, and the light burned her eyes if she looked at it for too long. Blinking, she averted her aching eyes and looked up at the sunflowers, which seemed to be peering down at her, silent sun-worshipping sentinels, the lot of them.
You are of two bloodlines, Dandelia Lion Lulamoon. One of them is cursed, the other has the means to set you free. Do you wish to be free, Dandelia?
“What sort of question is that?” she demanded.
This is the part where you choose, Dandelia. What will it be, Dandelia.. goodness and redemption, or—
“I reject weakness,” she said, and regretted it even as she said it.
Do you wish to reconsider, Dandelia?
“To what end?”
It is my hope to spare you some pain.
“My life has been nothing but pain. Where were you when I suffered? When I was in pain? In suffering, I found meaning. My pain gave me strength. That strength allowed me to purge my weaknesses. I made the pain go away. Me. You… you… I remember you… you were an imaginary friend, a playmate made of delusion. I… I’m having a stroke, which is why I am seeing you now. You’re a whisper from a past that I’d rather not remember.”
So this is how this ends...
“If I’m dying, I’d rather get on with it, rather than spend another moment experiencing this drivel.” Doubt, like a fluttering, frantic bird, could be felt thrashing about in her ribs.
The Darkness can give you nothing, Dandelia. It seeks only to abuse you, to exploit you for its own means. It has consumed so much of your bloodline. The Darks have been thoroughly devoured by it, and have been made slaves to it. This is your final warning, Dandelia.
“I’ll not be made weak,” she spat out, defiant.
A shadow moved among the sunflowers, an inky amorphous mass that lurked just beyond Dandelia’s senses. She recalled all too well; she had two imaginary friends as a filly—but only one of them brought comfort and succor. Sensing her old friend, she was overjoyed, and all doubt fled from her.
Dandelia tried to run to her old friend, eager to see her, but the sunflowers blocked her way. The stalks were surprisingly sturdy, quite stiff, and it took a great deal of effort to push past them. She had learned much from her unseen, shadowy playmate; secrets about the stars, strange magic, ancient spells long forgotten and uncast by modern tongues. Dabbling into this magic, she had discovered her birthright—power.
With power, she could destroy Mariner, and save Equestria from a terrible fate.
Very well, Dandelia. I release you. What sort of friend would I be if I did not respect your choices?
“You wanted me to stay meek, and meekness is weakness.”
Overhead, the beautiful, brilliant sun ceased to shine, and there was only all-consuming darkness. Dandelia was afraid, but only for a moment. She allowed the darkness to embrace her, and the sensation of sunflowers all around her vanished, replaced by nothingness. Beneath her hooves, there was only a void. All fear was suffocated within, all doubt, and she knew that she had what she wanted; the power to be free. At long last, it was hers, and she would make these unruly peasants bend their knees. They would kneel, or she would crush them, for such was the way of things.
Giddy, enveloped by the Darkness, Dandelia laughed until her ribs ached.
Still laughing, her ribs aching, Dandelia tried to overcome her dizzy disorientation. Something was wrong, but all of her senses were scrambled. For some reason, she seemed to be high up in the air, and she couldn’t feel the ground beneath her hooves. She kicked her legs, or tried to, but they didn’t feel responsive.
Looking down, she saw Mariner staring up at her. He had a pained grimace on his solemn face. In fact, he looked quite sad. Heartbroken, even. Blinking, she looked around a little more, and that was when she noticed the steel pole that she’d been skewered on, like a bug on a pin. She squirmed, but that was quite uncomfortable. The pole was crimson with blood—her blood—and after a bit of time thinking about it, she concluded that she was impaled on a flagpole, one that protruded from the side of a building.
It had gone through her lower torso, through her stomach just below her ribs, and had exited from just below her left front leg, punching through the ribs to be found there. Was Mariner crying? He was… he was most certainly crying. Why would he weep? Why would the poor, deluded fool weep? His face was a garish, ghoulish mask of glistening blood, and she could see that his tears washed some of the blood away, leaving streaks on his cheeks.
Her laughter became a wheezy, wet, raspy, nightmarish cackle.
“Kneel, you filthy peasant!”
The look of shock on Mariner’s face was delightful, and Dandelia reveled in it. She couldn’t see it, his face did not betray him, but she could sense his terror, and it was delicious to taste. Wanting it, needing it, she drank deep of his terror, and felt strength in her body as her pain faded away. Terror made such sweet sustenance.
“Dirty peasants!” As she shouted, green witchfire erupted from her horn, and the green flames of Tartarus danced in her eyes. “Vile peasants! Disgusting peasants! Disgusting primitives!” Her words were punctuated by a bloody cackle and her whole body twitched as powerful magic flowed through her like a conduit. She’d never felt more alive than she did right now, and the power felt better than anything she’d ever known.
“You will learn to kneel, you insufferable, disgusting ingrates!”
A thin green beam shot from Dandelia’s horn and she chortled with glee as one of the false-alicorns was disintegrated. It was a nightmarish death, and as his flesh dessicated into dust and blew away from his bones, screams of terror could be heard all around. The green flames cast a Tartarian glow upon the darkened street.
Though the sun had been shining during the odd hours of night, it had retreated, and Darkness held sway. Dandelia felt drunk, the terror she drank left her clumsy and dizzy. She was now beyond pain, beyond weakness, and she was growing stronger by the second. No stars shined overhead, for the Darkness had come to rule…
And peasants would be made to kneel.
Oh, they would be made to kneel.
She needed their terror to sustain her.
Inky tears dribbled down Dandelia’s cheeks, tarry tears that stained her pelt, turning it black. This blackness spread, consuming her body, but she needed more terror to fuel it. She would bring night to the world, eternal night, eternal terror, because the weak, superstitious disgusting primitives were afraid of the dark. With endless, eternal darkness, she could feast forever, a veritable buffet of suffering, terror, and pain. She would grow strong—so strong—and when there was nothing left to sup upon, she would move on to other worlds… other whens, and they too, would learn to fear the tenebrous night.
Just a few more delicious gulps of terror, and she would have wings again, beautiful, leathery wings, a mantle of living, fleshy darkness. With wings, she could free herself from this flagpole, and then she could get busy putting the peasants in their place—all of them. They would submit, or she would drink them dry. Sooner or later, she would drink them all dry, but for now, she needed subjects while she gestated.
“This is beyond us!” Mariner shouted. “Flee! Run away! Fly away! Depart from this place at once! This foe will be our ruination! Go! Flee! With all haste!”
As the herd of panicked pseudo-alicorns began to scatter, she fired upon them at random, disintegrating them, and sowing more terror in their ranks. She only needed just a little more terror, and then she would be free. The world would be cloaked in darkness. In mere moments, the ruined streets were empty, and Dandelia found herself all alone.
Alone.
She’d always been alone.
Memories of her loneliness gave her pause. She hesitated, uncertain. There were those who risked her ire to battle her loneliness. She thought of Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Would she make them kneel? Could she? A part of her didn’t want to, but it was such a small, weak, insignificant thing now, something so easily smothered.
Yet, the light within persisted.
Night Light and Twilight Velvet had given her Kiddo… to keep her company.
Kiddo kept the loneliness away.
She thought of Beatrix… Trixie. Trixie had her own Kiddo now, and Trixie too, had brave, brave souls that risked her ire to keep her company—to keep the gnawing loneliness at bay. Did Trixie know the Darkness? Had it spoken to her? Dandelia had come to save Sumac, but now she found herself wondering, who would save him from her? Beatrix? Night Light? Twilight Velvet?
“No,” she murmured, and as she shook her head, the witchfire dancing around her horn dimmed. “No, this was a mistake.”
Tears gushed from her eyes; not the goopy, tarry tears of corruption, but cleansing tears of sorrow and regret. The black stains on her cheeks were washed away by the torrential flood of tears as she was overwhelmed by a succession of images. Kiddo splashing in the bath. Little Trixie with a dirty face, spewing cookie crumbs everywhere. She looked up at the sky devoid of stars, and tried to find meaning in the vast, incomprehensible darkness.
Night Light had been the one to call her Trixie, hadn’t he?
Though separated by secrecy, imprisoned by lies, the clandestine bond had sustained her. It kept her going. Caper’s brutishness was made tolerable because of the secret love that was shared, a valuable treasure hidden away, with promises and vows kept silent. Oaths had been made—oaths that she was now on the verge of breaking.
Oaths that mattered.
Impaled on a flagpole, Dandelia Lion Lulamoon gazed up at the darkened heavens, and sought answers. How had she reached this point? Why couldn’t she have fled from Caper? She wondered, why didn’t she just take Trixie and run? Night Light and Twilight Velvet would have took her in… they would have sheltered her. So why hadn’t she left?
Why had she done this to Kiddo?
She knew why.
The Darkness needed misery to sustain its starved, thin shadow, its parasitic presence.
Kiddo too, now lived with its taint, Dandelia was sure of it.
When she tried to take a deep breath, she found that she could not. Weakness consumed her, devoured her, it was eating her alive, because she was all the Darkness had left. When she tried to speak, all that came out were bubbles of frothy blood. Limp, almost lifeless, Dandelia hung skewered from the flagpole and contemplated her many mistakes.
This last one had cost her dearly.
With the last of her strength, she held her head up, still hoping to find some meaning in the shroud of darkness overhead. A single star twinkled to life, and Dandelia, dying, saw it as a sign. Perhaps not all hope was lost. The night, the sacred Night, was illuminated by precious lights, and those lights were her birthright. She’d almost squandered her birthright.
Troubled by her actions, she coughed and vomited up a copious quantity of blood.
She’d come to save the peasants, not consume them.
Too weak to hold her head up any longer, she gasped and gurgled while she savoured the sight of the lone, twinkling star. It was alone, just like she was—a dreadful fate that nopony deserved. Somehow, she knew that this was her fault, her doing. She had caused this. Just one more poor choice among many, a life of bad choices, with this final one no doubt condemning her.
Alone, on a deserted, ruined street, Dandelia Lion Lulamoon faced her end. This was not how she wanted to go—being alone was the worst. She thought of Kiddo as her mind began to cloud over, and she felt sleepy, so sleepy. Teaching Trixie to talk had been quite an accomplishment, one that Dandelia was extraordinarily proud of. Dandelia, of course, Princess Emeritus of the Night Court, had taught her daughter to speak in the Royal We, but that lesson did not quite turn out as planned.
The weak attempt of faint laughter that followed the precious memory turned into a blood-drenched gurgle. One star still blazed, it still burned bright. It was defiant, adrift in a sea of blackness. Dandelia understood its meaning all too well… Beatrix was the last to bear the Lulamoon name. House Lulamoon’s stars had all gone dark, save one, and this one shone the brightest.
Dandelia was confident that this final star would endure.
It had to.
Too sleepy to keep her eyes open, Dandelia drifted off into a painless slumber, and her final thoughts were of sunflowers…
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Times like this I really wish I could give individual chapters a like and not just the story.
... Oh. Some part of her knew better, and yet... still, this is what she chose. A poor choice made from a place of mental and emotional damage, not whatever part of her was healthy.
oh poor Dandy.
She was a pompous ass, but I liked her.
Next chapter: Trixie goes HAM when she realizes what her power spike out of nowhere probably means....
9651339
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
- Slice of Life
Hard work is its own reward, and competence can be one's ultimate undoing.This gave some strong insight into how the Nightmare works and how it affects Luna's progeny, while also being a beautifully tragic ending to a character who had had an incredibly difficult life. Very well done.
Yes, it was.
Even one against many, that was a surprisingly close fight.
The mention of sunflowers now has me recalling a certain scene from that story, and wondering: It's been demonstrated that there's such a thing as damnation beyond death in this world, and im hoping that final choice didn't lead to such for Dandelia. She might have been kind of a massive jerk at times, but she was getting better.
This chapter might be my favorite part of this story so far.
Oh wow. Just wow. The way you tie these stories together is really something else. This chapter was a heckuva read.
9651449
"this has been a public health announcement "
"Binge reading is bad for your health"
What an end. I'd hoped it wouldn't be so but cannot say I'm entirely surprised.