Stars in the Sky

by Book_Wyrm

Dream Worlds

Chapter 5

Starry Sparks sat in her dreamscape, waiting. Being a child of the night, she had limited control over her own dreams. She could clear her mind and send her consciousness into the dream world. She could also step out of nightmares on her own. She now sat in her conscious dreamscape. It was in a glade outside her home city, a place of quiet she had often escaped to as a filly.

A small stream trickled through the glade, and gentle moonbeams shone through the dappled leaves. the grass was a blueish green in the moonlight. It was a place of natural beauty and serenity. The one thing that marred the area was the hunk of a misshapen cracked rock looming up in the darkness. It was part of why she liked the location, the hint of imperfection, a reminder in her far to perfect childhood home.

She sat in silence and reminiscence, remembering what had been, and what was yet to come. She often came to the glade in her dreams to contemplate. Tonight, she waited for another.

Starry felt the door in her dream world open, knew who entered through it. She knew, so she did not start when Princess Luna appeared in front of her. The Dark blue alicorn hovered in front of her.

“Starry Sparks,” Luna said dryly.

“Luna,” Starry replied in the same voice.

Then they both grinned, diving into each other, hugging. They squealed, talking back and forth at rapid fire pace

“I haven’t seen you since my return.”

“I was outside Equestria.”

“You look better without the cape.”

“I need it in the waking world, but not here.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to you girls.”

“It's okay. They understand.”

“What have you been up to the past hundred years anyway?”

“A lot, what about you?”

“Nothing much. Just returning home, reuniting with my big sister and facing a few more threats and returned enemies.”

“Then you are not going to like what I’ve got to say.”

This sobered both mares up. They separated, each regarding the other.

“What is it Starry? Why did you send that message?” Luna asked.

“The town of Amberhill was destroyed, its ponies slaughtered, and I think I know who did it.”

“how did you know who?”

“It was in the mark he left in the ground, seen by the only survivor. His cutie mark.”

“How do you know it's this pony, not someone else using the mark?”

“because nobody here would know it.”

“Why wouldn't they?”

“Because,” said Starry, “He is one of our legends our people. Tharykk.”

“Odd name. Who is he?”

“The first prisoner of Tartarus.”

“What!?”

“Tharykk was a monster, the first enemy of newly formed Everian, forty thousand years ago. Nopony remembers what he did, but he was why our people formed the eternal abyss. It was his prison, and others were added there later.”
“Forty thousand years,” Luna shuddered. “How long has he been planning what he’s going to do. How do you stop an enemy who’s had that long to plan? And why have I never heard of him.”

Starry sighed, rising. “Luna, you were barely twenty-five when you left. You never got the full education, and you have forgotten things like the legends of history we scare foals with.”

Luna looked at her, “Sometimes I forget how old we are, as a species, and a kingdom, in comparison to Equestria.”

Starry nodded. Alicorns changed so little that it was easy to forget that she was older than Equestria. Time had little meaning when you lived practically forever.

“So,” Luna continued, “What happened in Amberhill?”

“I’ll show you,” Starry said, shifting her dreamscape. The glade faded away, reshaping into the smoldering ruins of Amberhill. Luna visibly paled, looking at it. “This Tharykk must be stopped.”

“That may well prove to be impossible. You have never heard of him, but I went digging a couple of centuries ago for things about our legends. They’re old enough I wanted to know. There was this old bit of writing in the Athenaeum of Everian. It dates back thirty-six thousand years.” In her dream she showed the paper, to Luna, a worn scrap of parchment. Written in an elegant script, it said, ‘When full, his power blotted out the stars. In his enormity, it took an army to defeat him. The slaughter was terrible. In the end, they were victorious, and locked him in a prison, that he would in all hopes never escape.’

She watched as Luna read the paper. “You see? Tharykk was only defeated by an army working together. An army of alicorns.”

“Could we get something like that?” Luna asked.

Starry sighed. “The alicorn kingdom is filled with a bunch of ponies that go about their lives pretending everything is perfect. They would no more fight then you would spend another thousand years on the moon.” She sighed.

“This paper also mentions a slaughter,” Luna pointed out, “What could slaughter an army that big.”

Starry shuttered. Suddenly the setting changed a new scene appearing before their eyes. Now the mares were standing on a battlefield. Corpses lay smoking and rotting across the bloodstained field. Some wore shining steel armor, while others wore gray embossed with a flame. In some places the ground was scorched bare, and there were pools of blood scattered everywhere. As quickly as it came, the village faded, the woodland glade shaping itself around them.

“What...what was that?” Luna asked, shaking slightly. Her eyes were large, the pupils somewhat dilated. Her mouth hung open, and her voice shook.

“That,” Starry told her sadly, “Was a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

“A reminder of what I am, what I can be. We all have scars. Some run deeper than others. Some run through who we are, down to our core. Some never truly heal.”

Luna watched her friend carefully. The blue alicorn had not heard all the details of her friend’s history, she knew that there were tragedies and nightmare’s that made Luna’s own experience look like a playground. She could barely imagine what it must be like, knowing what Starry knew, witnessing what she’d witnessed. Starry's eyes had the look of one who had seen far too much over her life. She had been part of horror’s for millennia. Luna had never even dared ask her friend what atrocities she herself had committed, how many she had killed.

They both felt a little ping. It was a reminder by their bodies that dawn approached in the real world. Luna spoke first. “I really must be going. I need to tell Celestia about this.”

“Just don’t mention me,” Starry reminded her, “It would be far too hard to explain.”

“I will not. I remember well what we were told. The oaths we swore."

“Goodbye Luna.”

“Goodbye Starry.”

Starry Sparks watched Luna fade away, before turning to herself. She willed herself awake. The birds were just beginning to sing as she opened her eyes. Shadow Shield and Amethyst Mirror slumbered next to her. She did not feel the need to wake them up yet. A little time alone to consider their next course of action was necessary.

She wandered over to the tree line, looking down at the road. On it were but a few hoofmarks, visible in the early morning light. I guess there’s only one course I can take, she thought. Why does it have to be me though, why does it always have to be me? She turned back away from the beaten earth path, to rouse her companions for the long path ahead. One of many paths, and the only one available to them. Finding Tharykk, and keeping him from whatever he was doing.

Starry only hoped it was the right path to take.

Author's Note:

Te presento a Exposition.
Seriously, this entire chapter is just exposition.

On another note, I will now be doing something new in author notes. Book recommendation. Every week I will give a list of recommended fantasy novels to read. If you want to add one of your own, post it in the comments and I will put it on next chapter's list.

Book recommendations:
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass
The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini (Graphic Novel)

More next chapter.

Comments

[flutterboot]

Love the fellowship between Luna and her. Hope for more of that