A Story from Stone, Shattered Serenity

by BCBB

[ Prologue ] My head is bloody, but unbowed

A Story from Stone
Shattered Serenity
BCBB

[ Prologue ]

My head is bloody, but unbowed

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Amidst the smoking craters were the flickering embers of dying fires, a lone Alicorn in medium night guard armor, wearing a scabbard on his left side as he walked the battlefield. As he trudged up a hill in this blasted and scorched landscape, a breeze blows a noticeable foul concoction of ozone, smoke, and blood. His breathing heavy, he ignores the excruciating pain of his missing torn off left wing. He knew he would have bled out hours earlier, if his best friend had not used the last of his own strength to save him by cauterizing the wound. He stumbles, and pauses for a few seconds, then he to rises on his hooves, and resumes his slow tortured climb toward the hilltop.

As every bone and muscle in his body burns, so do his last memories of his teacher, his mother, his friends, and this entire war with this bucking empire and he cannot stop the images flashing before his eyes.

As he nears the crest of the hill, his mind settles on one specific set of memories. Namely the ones about her smile, the color of her pelt and mane, the way her eyes shimmered when she found something interesting. He lingered on the regret and knowledge that he should have told her how he felt sooner, if he had, then perhaps the outcome would’ve been wholly different had he not hesitated. As he crested the top of the hill, what awaited him sickened him his very core and tears stung his eyes. The black armored enemy forces, accompanied by war beasts, along with two groups of monstrosities that were responsible for all this destruction.

One of fire and smoke took the guise of ponies, and another was the dark shadowy ponies, the deepest black that pulled all light around them, so not a single mote escaped. Behind the monsters and army stood the three leaders of these hordes, the dark armies Emperor and by his sides flanked the two traitors. Silhouetted against the eclipse hanging ominously over this unthinkable massacre, the Emperor carried the visage of the monster which nearly destroyed the world Centuries ago.

The traitor on his right was the former student of their former teacher, whose pelt was blacker than the darkest night and highlighted with the glow of violet, as though reminiscent of her former color, it appeared as though tendrils of oily darkness coiled off her. Her mane and tail were a pale sickly green, her horn split down the middle and came to rest at the sides of her head. Deep crimson eyes that spoke of barely contained rage. She had enslaved herself to an ancient dark god. She too bore responsibility for everything that happened, the invading empire, the eclipse, and the betrayal of one of the few closest to him.

On his left was the mare he loved, her pelt lost its vibrant color that used to comfort and excite him. Now her pelt is charcoal black, with only a smoldering glow of barely contained flame. Forming veins, erratically twisting across her form, shifting, wandering and flying off to spark in the air around her. Her mane and tail had undergone changes as well, what was once a two-toned reminder of the time of day when most ponies would stop and admire for a time, was now smoke and wafting slowly in an unseen breeze from an entirely wrong direction to the real wind. Her horn, no longer a spiral, was shaped now as a jagged rock glowing bright as metal taken from a forge, her eyes retained its brilliant liquid color.

“What now?” shouted the Alicorn.

“Hahaha... Is this all that's left of the once glorious equestrian army? All it had taken was one-tenth of my army to be sacrificed?” the emperor boasts.

“We wiped easily a third of your scum from this land, until you started to bolster your numbers using those abominations!”

Responding to his declaration, the smiling emperor slowly raises his arms with a taunt, “Say what you will, but soon all of Equss will be conquered. Then all shall kneel in submission before me.”

“You are just a slave to a dark god! All this death and destruction, all to accomplish what?!” the Alicorn shouted in reply.

“The one you call a dark god, has only asked for all Equss as his prize for his support,” the traitor spoke up “In return he grants much. When he returns to this world, he will grant his most loyal the honor of godhood and lands to rule as they see fit, this could be your gifts as well. After all you have nothing left, as your gods are powerless and broken, your friends are dead, the elements of harmony are destroyed, you're battered and torn, missing a wing and can't have much magic power left,” the traitor on the right spoke.

“You certainly offer a lot to your enemy, why?”

“Why not, you no longer pose a threat as you once did, but as an ally you would be one of the most powerful! Think about it, all you have left to fight with is that antique at your side, join us and you can be reunited with her,” the traitor gestures to her companion on her left.

The Alicorn looks to her and asks, “Was it worth it?” His cherished past companion momentarily meets his gaze and lowers hers. “I see then…” he pauses and then states” I have my answer for you.”

“Oh, and what is it?” the traitor smiles seductively at him in anticipation.

He breathes deeply “BUCK YOU!!!” in a royal canterlot voice, all are stunned as he continues “EVEN IF I’M THE LAST ONE STANDING, SOMEONE WILL TAKE MY PLACE AND BRING AN END TO YOU AND YOUR DELUSIONS!!” The three appear stunned and frozen in place with his announcement.

A white aura, that reminded those who had seen it previously of starlight, radiated from his horn and gripped the single edged, slightly curved, dark blue colored metal, dual bladed sword at his side, ripping from its sheath and leveling one of the swords points at the three.

“JOINING YOU WOULD BE AN INSULT TO MY FRIENDS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO ENSURE THAT THE CITIZENS COULD ESCAPE!!”

He took the blades hilt in his mouth as the two-foot-long blades erupted in a dark blue fire and charged toward the arrogant three.

“Foolish choice,” says the emperor; he looks to his right and his left as he lowers his arms - with his command-“do it.”

The traitor on the right bows “As you wish,” she rises and a dark aura gathers with a faint violet glow in between her horns in a sphere, she fires it up into the air above herself. In a half-second it expands into ten times its size and hundreds of bolts of magic begin to cascade toward the Alicorn.

The mare on the left lowered her gaze as she muttered “I’m sorry”. She erupts in an inferno and from her horn shoots off a huge torrent of white-hot flame at the Alicorn.

Author's Note:

I wanted to thank TDR, for letting me and my partner set our story in the Stories in Stone Series. The title of the chapter is form Invictus by William Ernest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning's of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.