Song and Dance of the Desert's Garden

by Renaissance Muffins

Chapter 9- Nomads and Ancient Beasts

Chapter 9- Nomads and Ancient Beasts

It was almost an hour before they began to feel the harsh winds from the never ending blizzards that plagued the desert. Between the village and the desert, the salt flats gave no sign of life- not even vegetative life could sprout. Unable to pilot the ship any further, Flight Gear landed the Goshawk and Abner's party was forced to continue on foot. Albedo's control over weather had no apparent effect on the clouds, they were apparently under someone else's control.

Following the map and forcing their way through the storm with a thick shield of magic, they eventually came upon an eye in the blizzard where they saw a small camp of tents black in color. Rushing toward their destination, the camp appeared to be empty, until one robed pony came out from a tent, apparently from just waking up. Another one arose from a tent, followed by another and so forth until they began to roll up their tents and walk away from them. Abner's party eventually caught with a brisk jog, careful of not spending all of their energy for the upcoming battle. The nomadic tribe continued on without much notice, following the Giglioi Whale as if it was calling them.

Practically an entire day passed before the tribe stopped moving again. They immediately set up camp and began to rest. It was hard to tell when it the day had become night and night into day. Abner's party stopped as well, not sure if they should trail behind the tribe or travel in one big group with them. Abner took this discussion time to look over the chakrams again with their perfectly circular shape. Their outer edges had blades of a shining blue with whimsical grooves that went from each runestone to the other. Each groove ended at an engraving around either runestone that represented whichever element and the grooves themselves represented the elements on each chakram. Each chakrams blade was crafted to represent the elements that it held within. The inner edge was merely a ring of woven cloth lightly tanned.

Charger took it upon himself to pay the nomads a visit and ask if the Giglioi Whale was still following the same trail. They confirmed that it was and asked why they wished to follow the whale with a few weapons drawn. Charger answered calmly that they only wish to follow it to the Guardian's Temple. The nomads withdrew their weapons and continued their wandering among the camp, they appeared a bit irritated by the newcomers. The nomadic tribe consisted of various different species. Some appeared to be ponies of sorts, another few as wolves, more as tall golem like creatures. They all wore robes of black with gold and white patterns lining the sleeves and collars. Large hoods and veils prevented their faces from being seen along with short white capes that drifted lightly along their backs. The winds in the eye were a lot nicer compared to the ones outside it.

One by one the Nomads went to their tents and slept for the night. They were practically in sync with the whale's sleep pattern and movements. Who knows how many generations have traveled behind the whale, Abner's memory recall no specific date when they started to. Their history being almost entirely undocumented, perhaps he could ask the leader of the tribe, if there was one. Looking around, Abner saw a few familiar faces from the vision he had of Malakai. One of the golems stopped before him and they silently stared at one another. “Malakai?” The golem spoke softly in a gravel voice. “That can't be right, you're dead. Name yourself at once!” Abner wrote in the rune scripture that the letters of the runestones drew from onto the pad of paper Albedo had given him. The golem of earth and ice was surprised at first at Abner's claim of descending from Malakai's lineage. “Then you must be here to stomp down the invaders.” Invaders? There shouldn't be such a thing, not here. Abner asked the golem to explain. He answered solemnly, “These creatures, writhing in black mass. I've only fought such crazed beasts once before; thousands of years ago. They hunger for primal magics and cease to halt their famished stomachs.” So the Blight had made their way here in an effort to prevent Abner's party from reaching the Temple. Abner hoped that such a thing wouldn't happen but at east there would be some excitement. “Abner, was it? I recall Drystan going out for help, taking the sword with him. Seeing you here now means he was successful in his task. Tell me young one, did he return with you?” Abner nodded to his shadow, Drystan gave a short wave. “Ah, he never took a liking to any form. You and you party may continue following us. We shall reach the Temple in two days time.”

Two days seemed awfully long, it could be enough time for Celestia's magic field to take over the mountain range they'd recently crossed. Which means that if they didn't place the sword upon the altar soon, they would be surrounded. It felt like forever before they came to a rest, Abner's party hadn't taken such a long walk in ages it seemed. The closest was probably walking from Whisk's tavern to Canterlot Castle. Abner wondered how the nomads kept themselves fed and knew when to continue or stop. Njödur, the golem he had talked to before, filled him in. Most of the ones who required food no longer needed it, as they had a spell casted upon them, “Nourishment”, he called it.

With another day passed without much notice, the nomads lead them to a large dune that encircled the Temple, creating a basin and surprisingly, the snowstorm didn't bother to touch the area. It was high noon with a clear sky. In the center, the faint outline of the three towers could be seen. Before leaving, Abner asked Njödur about Celestia and Luna, mentioning what Howlite said about them being banished here. He called the tribal leader, who had lived amongst them the longest. A reptilian being, a short and stout dragon tan and white all over but had no wings. Another interesting feature were the small spikes that wrapped his around his lower jaw and the back of his neck Abner asked the leader the same question, the answer which he received was a bit lengthy.

“Well, Abner...” the dragon spoke in a hoarse and wise tone. “...The Celestia and Luna you speak of, were banished here by their kingdom of old. Some odd years later, your ancestor sought the Temple as well. He and his companions gave four necklaces to us, each was engraved with a rune representing a specific emotion if memory serves me right. Celestia and Luna had already obtained the two themselves. I've pondered for some time what those were for but I've long since stopped. They both found their own way and where they are now escapes my knowledge.” The short dragon sighed lightly, “May Giglioi's will help you.” He finished before leading the Nomads away from Abner's party to follow the Whale once more. Njödur joined Abner's party knowing that the more people they had, the better their odds would be.

The entire party consisted of Cuffs, Charger, Lark, Tiva, Abner, Njödur, Marina, Drystan and Wrecker. They marched forward to the Temple at a brisk pace confronting no enemies. About halfway there, a howling sound like a boat's foghorn roared over the chilling wind and broke through the storm front. Everyone ceased their movement. A massive black oblong diamond shape that appeared to emit a continuous black fog began to fire hundreds of cannons in their direction. Abner activated his Blight Vision to check if it was a single entity as Marina, Cuffs, and Lark projected a protective shield. As the airship began to break through the front further, it was followed by dozens of smaller ships who also opened fire. Luckily, the ships were a single combined mass but something else was afoot- several of the ships appeared to dropping balls of smoke that released foot soldiers in the dozens.

Charger began giving orders, not letting the armada's size concern him. “Lets get to the Temple before they do and set up a defensive perimeter. There's a colonnade that we can use to achieve an advantage.” Abner deactivated his Blight Vision and was the first to start running to the Temple; the rest of the party followed suit. Amazingly, they avoided all of the cannon fire and razor sharp beams of magic. Charger flew to the top of the colonnade and began to give orders and keeping Tiva safe behind him. Abner used some magic to run up the steep colonnade that wrapped itself around the three towering obelisks. “Abner, hit them hard. Use the runestones Prudence gave you.”

The largest ship began to rise in altitude and began another barrage of cannon fire almost in unison with the other ships. Abner took a short quick and deep breath, drawing from Stribog's pool of magic within him and projected a massive square shaped shield that successfully detonated every cannonball and deflected each massive beam. The foot soldiers began a full-on charge towards the small group with their numbers well into the tens of thousands. Abner pulled one of the runestones from his satchel and activated it with a little magic. It was one of lightning, a para-elemental stone that allowed the user to fire bolts of lightning from the stone which each magic induction. Abner levitated the stone in front of his nose and fired off nearly four dozens bolts and took down nearly a dozen of the smaller ships that had broken through the storm front. Each ship crashed into the sand drifts below and reformed itself into dozens of large creatures.

Abner continued going through each of the stones until they burned out. He used fire to create a wall, water to create massive sinkholes in the sand, earth to assemble projectiles out of hardened sand and hurl them towards the Blight, and air to form dust devils to throw off their advancement. The last two stone Abner had at his disposal was one of crystal and one of metal. The flag ship, the largest in the fleet, still held a menacing presence as it still floated above the battlefield. Something else was launched from the ship this time, small fixed winged planes began approaching in droves. Abner had Wrecker launch him toward the incoming planes with the full force of his might. Wrecker's strength sent him straight into the middle of the planes and with one quick movement, Abner created a sphere of metal spikes around him and used a blast of magic energy to propel them outward; effectively eliminating a good portion of the small fighter fleet. Abner let gravity take over his descent down to the sands below, where a mass of Blight creatures variate from the mundane and incredibly complex with their size ranging from the incredibly small to the ridiculously large but still dwarfed by the Temple's colonnade structure with numerous arcs connecting each one together. Abner used his free falling force in combination with Matan to pierce the head of the largest creature that had taken form as a massive hammer wielding statuesque figure shaped after a minotaur.

After impacting the desert's surface and throwing up a massive cloud of sand and smoke, Abner summoned a field of flowering crystal masses with the last runestone. Breaking through some of the crystals, Abner using his chakrams as a defensive perimeter, wielded Rembrandt with levitation magic and Matan with his mouth, like he had always done. Charger and the others aside from Marina, Tiva, and Lark, threw themselves into the fray. Charger went forward with his saber, Wrecker with his brute strength alongside Njödur, Cuffs charged in using bolts of magic. Having slayed more than a thousand in a few minutes and avoiding sniper like beams from the last and the largest flagship in the sky. Abner dodge, rolled, parried, cut through, and utterly destroyed wave after wave of enemies to get underneath the ship's center. Charger had the rest of the fighting party to regroup on Abner and defend him.

Abner stopped dead center under the ship where it appeared to be unable to aim. Drawing from Stribog's pool of magic once more and slowly merging it with Prudence's gathered a large mass of raw light magic in an ever enlarging

pulsating sphere at the tip of his horn, steadily aim and released it as massive beam that acted like a static charge from its base and to its point of impact which disintegrated the back half the ship. The resulting mass was thrown forward towards the Temple, where it then collided and broke through each one causing a collapsing chain reaction. The army of Blight began a full scale retreat.

The fighting group ran back to the Temple's colonnade and regrouped with Tiva, Lark, and Marina. Charger was the first to speak up among the silence, “Well, the Blight retreated but its only a matter of time before they return. Abner, Lark, and Tiva, find the altar in which to lay that sword on. The others and I will set up a perimeter in the meantime. Cuffs, Wrecker, set up as many traps as you can. Marina and Njödur, see what you can do to bottleneck them. I'll stay on a short patrol just outside the perimeter. Lets get to it.”

The destruction wrought by the ships collision with the towers created a large field of debris of sandstone and limestone that made up the towers. The bridges that had connected the towers together managed to hold up rather well at their entry points but the strain of the earthshaking impact broke them apart at their center. The shortest two of the three towers had their top halves cut off and the ship had barely nicked the third and tallest tower but had managed to scrape off the pyramid that topped the structures. Coincidentally, the winds caused by the collapsing debris managed to clear off a good portion of sand from the base of towers. A very peculiar design that reminded him of one of the design's from Howlite's notes but the rubble had obscured a good portion of the design.

Abner found a smaller alternate entrance into the tallest tower. He was followed by Lark and Tiva who awed at the towers church like décor. The same décor that Abner had seen just before the vision he had of Malakai. Only everything was in color, partially eroded, and dimly lit. The same four spiral staircases located by the entry way still stretched high towards the sky, their ends overshadowed by the floor above. The stairs were the only way up and as much as Abner would like to stay and admire the architecture, they needed to continue on. Tiva took to flying up to the next floor, Abner and Lark took to the stairs, using teleportation to shorten the trip.

Upon their final step at the stairs end, they were greeted by the breeze of wind, the empty desert below had remnants of the tower in a very linear direction and the clouds of snow in the distance were ever ominous. The stained glass floor from the vision was there, before the altar instead of the podium. However, something was a little bit different, the altar was located in the center, atop of the glass. It was a simple altar made of a stair-stepped stone base and engraved with an image similar to the dunes of the sands. It was a gray color with several jades embedded into each corner that meet the small and very lacking top surface of the altar. A large single piece of the tower pyramidal top remained, the peak of its shadow rested atop the altar, casting an odd feeling of strange accomplishment.

The other three guardians remained petrified. A bird whose feathers looked like lightning the streaked past his tail with a beak long and narrow directly left of the altar and standing as tall as it could, barely taller than an average home. To the right lied the Chimera, claws and forelegs of an eagle, full neck and head of a goat upon its back, hind legs of a bull, body and head of a lion with a tail made of a venomous serpent that sat with his head bowed. The third statue resembled a large sly fox lied equally space between the other two sporting nine tails and about the same size as the bird. The remains of the fourth statue was where Stribog should've been, directly opposite of the fox.

Abner looked around for the remains of Malakai, who should've been in stone still, but Njödur said that he had passed away, probably from being petrified for such a long time. However, most excerpts about petrification say that the one petrified does not pass, but remain in a state of immortality. Drystan mentioned that Stribog may have shattered him when he awoke. What was strange is that the seal hadn't broken on the other three beasts. A question for another time perhaps.

Abner drew out Matan for the last time and rested it upon the altar. Placing it vertically into the slot that had been carefully crafted for the large sword. As Abner withdrew from the altar, four circles of went ablaze in orange light. Each one began at the feet of the petrified beasts and had a single line coursing to the altar where the light climbed and seeped into the blade and retreated back into the magic circles. When the light vanished, the petrified beasts shell of stone began to crack and break away. Each one of the beasts began shaking of the smaller bits the remained and stretched out their limbs. The feeling that something wasn't right arose among Abner, Tiva, and Lark as they slowly backed towards the spot where Stribog once stood. The three beasts instead of confronting to fight Abner, touched the altar instead. A sudden flash of light shattered the altar apart and the beasts began to vanish into thin air, but their souls remained as orbs of light with each being a different color.

Without warning, the three orbs thrusted themselves into Abner's body. Throwing him into an alternate plane of existence, entirely empty in its content aside from a floor and white space. After getting his senses together, Abner realized that he was stranded here with all of his weapons. The three beasts arose together a good distance away from him where they began to spew out creatures of Blight from their bodies. Abner easily disposed of them and charged toward the beasts. With a single leap and a single blow, Abner rid the plane of the fox. The nine tailed fox had other plans however, as it split into multiple, three smaller bodies and began to attack as the Chimera's serpent tail struck at Abner. Abner avoided the attack with a quick teleport and proceeded to trap the fox in a magic cube while avoiding the lightning fast dash attacks from the bird. These three beasts had been trained well to work together, he wondered if Stribog had been as well.

Abner first focused on the Lightning Bird, eventually tricking it to run into Matan's blade by making himself appear vulnerable while fighting the Chimera. Turning him in a fury of lightly colored brown ashes. Abner then moved to the Chimera which had began spit venom from his tail at a distance and use the goat's head to block attacks from its side. Abner first cut off the Chimera's tail and the serpentine head at its end and then climbed the side of the beast as it turned around as Abner pierced the goat's head from underneath its jaw with Matan. From there Abner swung around the collapsing mass and went for the Chimera's head like an arrow as the fox defeated the magic box Abner had trapped him in. Abner thought well not to strike a clean blow as he had done before. He recalled his vision and looked for any clue that lead to the fox's defeat but to no avail. The fox crafted began crafting little dolls that bore a resemblance to Whisk and the others, but the heavy ink-like body the Blight consisted of received Abner's strike without hesitation. Abner summoned up ice magic to freeze the three scurrying foxes, each had inherited three tails from its normal form. After turning a good portion of the near endless plane into a glacier, Abner managed to contain each one in a solid crystalline block of ice that looked like a large projectile impacting a low angled surface. Abner followed each frozen target with a hefty swing of his sword.

The plane vanished into blackness and Abner awoke where he had collapsed on the tower, Lark and Tiva nowhere nearby. With the Guardians taken down, Abner recovered his breath among the silence. The Blight essence that had resided within them remained scattered across the ground until Drystan slipped out from his shadow and the inky substance began flowing into Drystan's body. Abner slowly backed away as Drystan's body grew in size. “Finally, after all this time. The Blight of the Gaurdian's is mine and I have you to thank you for it, Abner. I am, however, still incomplete. There rests the Blight inside you that I could not obtain, release it and I shall end the crisis. If you don't then I have no choice but to dispose of you.”

“I thought he would trick us. Abner, Blight works like a weed in a garden, you cannot get rid of it unless you dig up the roots.” Prudence remarked.

“I can still hear you, Prudence. If you wish to fight, then so be it.” Drystan said. Drystan morphed into a figure similar to Whisk's and charged toward Abner. Abner avoided his attack and as he turned to face Drystan, he taunted him “Abner, are you sure you can kill your own friends?” A hundred figures well crafted to look like Whisk suddenly encircled him. “After months of traveling together, forming bonds of heart, are you sure you can burn down those bridges you've built?”

“Keep pressing forward, Abner. If I'm right, we're still in the same dimensional plane.” Prudence said. “Remember that its only Drystan you're fighting.”

“I can hear you, you know.” Drystan added, as all of the clones charged toward Abner. Abner jumped up only to be thwarted by ones further away who had changed into triangular faceted figures of Charger who tackled him to the ground. “Do you know what happens to all the Blighted creatures you've killed? Did you think that it just went away, became purified so no more harm was wrought?” Each mouth of the clones talked simultaneously, becoming one echoing voice that perturbed his hearing. Abner shook the clones off of him, remembering the way that Charger fought in close quarters and used his weight against him. Each clone that Abner threw to the ground vanished in a puff a smoke but each time that occurred, an electrical shock pierced through Abner's body that tensed up every single muscle. “That, that there is exactly what I mean. Abner. I endured that every time you killed one of the creatures but each one means more power.”

After the shock, the scenery changed from the top of the tower to the nightmare that he had one night in Canterlot where he chased after Prudence but woke up after experiencing his body melting away into the ground with buildings aflame all around him. Drystan changed some of the clones into the rest of Charger's original squad, Prudence, Wrecker, Marina, and Cuffs. Abner drew Matan from his sheath, ready to fight and charged forward. With every shock that coursed through him, Abner became more enraged. Not because of the pain and his tiring strength, but because Drystan betrayed him and was fighting using his friends image and not his own. All of the clones had been unable to use any magic and their fighting styles were practically the same.

He slayed every clone one by one until none remained and by the time he could catch his breath, his fur was singed and burned with smoke trailing from his body. Drystan reformed again, taking on Abner's shape. “Endure it, Abner, as I have over thousands of years!”

“Abner, if you keep pushing forward like this, I don't think i'll be able to heal you properly.” Prudence worriedly warned him.

Abner forced himself forward, defending himself from duplicate attacks that Drystan threw at him. They clashed their swords to a standstill, “Can you defeat yourself Abner? Every attack you've made I can easily duplicate.” Abner brought about his chakrams to strike from both sides only to be blocked by Drystan's own. “Almost at your breaking point and yet you still insist on fighting?” Abner pulled himself away and Drystan did the same. Every action, down to breathing and walking, Drystan managed to duplicate easily without any effort. Abner fired a quick beam of light magic from horn only to be canceled out by Drystan's own. “Everything you know, I know. Just give up and I won't have to kill you.”

Abner continued to fight on, using everything he had, the elemental magics he knew as well as arcane and primal. Each spell of his canceled out by equal power or more. He fought Drystan using each of his melee weapons. If he swung Matan from the side, Drystan parried or blocked it. If he threw his chakrams forward, Drystan blocked it with clones of his own. If he used Rembrandt for a quicker swings using levitation, Drystan forced his magic grip loose and threw it back at him. Abner even used the spell to fire off the magic beam that took down the flagship only to have it fizzle away in front of Drystan. Even wrestling him down to the ground failed to work as Drystan would just force him off with a quick arcane blast. The Blighted Chain held no effect, as the impacts barely phased him.

Abner thought about giving up momentarily, but an idea came to him, Drystan hadn't learned how to combine light and dark magic. Abner casted an opaque shield around himself and began drawing out the runes required onto his shoulders by carefully burning off his hair to shape them. Prudence concerned at first until Abner assured her not to worry by writing a few words on the shield's interior. A secret that Howlite had told Abner without his son's notice. After having drawn the lines to direct the flow of magic to his horn, Abner released the shield and focused his magic energy to the tip of his horn, where it gathered up as a small clear and smoothly flowing orb. Abner charged forward and locked his blade with Drystan once again and when he did, Abner fired off the charged magic into Drystan's head, shattering his image of Abner as a dark shadowy figure and returned to his original alicorn shaped form.

Drystan lied on the ground with the Blight slowly seeping away from his body, revealing the colors of his fur and mane. Prudence was in awe and unable to speak. Drystan turned around to face Abner while lying on the ground. “So you've can burn your bridges and you can overcome yourself, but can you kill someone?” he said, changing into an all too familiar shape with the voice to match. “Well, can you?” Abner stepped back, seeing that he had changed into Lark. “Not so easy is it? What are you waiting for, the world isn't going to fix itself.” The memories of Lark coursed through Abner's mind like an ocean in a ravaging storm, he hadn't realized how emotionally attached he had grown to her. Everything she did was normally for him and he always thanked her silently. “Come on Abner, you can fight, you can save, but you can't kill someone who betrayed you!? I'm sure you've hunted a few rabbits in your lifetime, it can't be this difficult for-” Abner struck Drystan's chest with Matan with all of his might, causing him to writhe in pain for a good minute. “-you. You've done it and I thank you. Living forever is such a hassle.” Drystan remarked with a smile as his body fizzled away into the air as specks of light, flowing high into the dark empty sky.

The Blight Drystan had threw itself at Abner, forcing him out of the dimensional plane and back into the real world where he was being shook a bit by Lark until she saw his eyes open. “Oh thank goodness you're alive, I was so worried.” She said, wiping a few tears away from her eyes. I carried you down here, the center point between the three towers, Charger saw that the design in the foundation holding the towers had a design that resembled something you might be able to work with. We've cleared off the rest of the sand so you could study it.”

Abner stumbled for a moment, his body ached from the fight. An odd feeling considering that none of his wounds he had received were visible. He walked around the engraved stonework, seeing that it was in fact a massive rune the held every circle of magic with two more attached to either side; one of song and one of dance. The seventh circle lied outside of the Primal Diamond but touched its touched the top, just above the rune of light. In the middle was the sixth circle, slightly raised. When he stood in its center, he felt a sudden surge of magic flow through him and then he knew exactly needed to be done.

He opened the satchel on his harness and pulled out just a little bit of howlite powder and placed it in the engraved rune beneath him. Abner activated the rune, which forced the Blight out from Abner and destroyed it in a beam of light, but the hooked swirls remained stained in his fur. He then planted the blades of both his swords equally apart in front of and and placed one chakram over the hilt to rest on the guard. He walked over to the seventh circle and upon its activation Prudence's consciousness was forced out of Abner and she took on her original form once more beside Tiva. Abner's head felt a bit lighter but he could feel his magic powers lessen to a great extent. Prudence struggled to get back on her feet, she had nearly forgotten how to walk. Tiva immediately helped her up with great joy jumping in her heart. The horn remained with him, but Prudence had her own as well.

Abner continued on and activated the seventh circle again to remove Stribog's soul from his body, who also retook his original form behind Abner. With Stribog taken from him, his magic pool drained down one miniscule bit, enough to trigger one last rune. He walked over to Marina and gave her his satchel and necklace after taking the last bit of howlite he needed, leaving enough for them to remove Whisk's petrification and perhaps Belisama's as well. He turned back to the center of the main magic circle, the sixth circle that held the product of life and its related functions: immortality, creation, and transmutation.

He poured the howlite into the engravings and had Lark stand on the circle of song and Tiva on the circle of dance. Abner then spoke with his own voice, “ Tiva, dance gracefully along and Lark, sing to me that ballad.” His voice was clear and filled with weariness and still held the vibrant youth he once had, full of heart. Lark sang the ballad, holding back her tears and Tiva danced gracefully danced along knowing the result.

The ballad began at first calling the earth and its restless strife. With the second verse, the ballad was about the heart and light. The third verse spoke of the planet's four primary elements. The fourth verse was apologetic and spoke of the bell's knell. Finally, the last verse and shortest cleansing be brought forth by rain in a garden. With the last line, Abner activated the rune and from there came an enormous field of magic that rapidly flowed outward into the storm with every circle of magic softly glowing. The blizzard's clouds were disintegrated upon meeting the magic field and as the field grew ever larger, everything that was tainted by the Blight, was cleansed. However, the same could not be said for those who may have perished from it. The magic field pierced through and engulfed the one that Celestia had erected and continued on until it made its way around the entire planet. Once the spell was finished, its light gray surface fizzled away and what remained of the magic circle was an incredibly luscious garden and a stone figure where Abner stood on all fours, proudly looking in the direction where his home was. The garden was filled with Olwen's lillies, chrysanthemums, roses, purple achimenes, brodiaea, and veltheimia. It reached out to the colonnade where nearly a dozen brachychiton trees grew, blocking a good portion of the arches. His weapons remained untouched but impossible to remove.

Lark cried her heart out, Marina silently comforted her. Prudence looked on with Tiva helping her stand. Stribog flew up to the colonnade and let out a mournful roar that signified the end of the journey. Charger and the others walked in from the bottleneck entrance they created out of the debris. “Well, looks like the little guy did it.” he said, relieved but saddened. “Marina, does that satchel have the telecommunications device Flight Gear gave Abner?” Marina nodded to confirm. “Toss it over. We can't stay here, we have homes to go to and people to help. Lark, I know you would like to stay, but you'll starve out here by yourself. Njödur, you can stay here if you like, Stribog may stick around though; that's up to him. Prudence, it's good to have you back.” Charger paused. “Well now how's this thing supposed to work?”

Charger quickly figured out the device and called for Flight Gear, giving him the coordinates on the map Marina had. Lark gathered her strength up again and boarded the Goshawk for what could be the last time and headed back to Canterlot, a good three day trip without stopping. That day, they all left with heavy hearts and minds. Their victory, their journey, ended with a sacrifice that would be burned into the the history of textbooks everywhere. Their journey would become a legend that would be passed on for generations to come.