...Comes The End Of Days
Gleaming and her detachment of Charlie Troop met up with Gilda and her Apple griffons at the stern hatchway.
She had no idea where the major had found the axe.
The hatch didn't last long, before the panicked fury of the Equestrian unicorn's magic.
Gilda led her griffons in a headlong charge through the shattered hatch. Gleaming's shining axe-head barely got out of the way of the huge griffon's bulk before Gilda had burst into the darkness along with the tumbling splinters and bits of hatch.
The toms behind her back raised up an unearthly yowl, that old Trottish yalp that Martingale had tried, and failed to train out of her birds. Gilda's wings were too wide to give her hurling mass any further momentum, and she lost the tip of one feather as her instincts caused a spasmic twitch to put it in the way of whatever was hiding in this hatchway.
Her legs drove her forward, far further than she'd expected when she'd psyched herself into charging into this hole
But eventually, her run came to an end - the Bit's envelope was only so long, after all. And her blunted club met pony-flesh in the darkness, at the same time that an unseen haft met Gilda's neck in a stinging, terrifying blow.
The unseen blade of the spear clanged off of something above Gilda's head. The thestral had seen her coming, but hadn't time to set himself - or herself? - before the collision.
The groaning when Gilda's left rear paw found a sudden stop in the pony's crotch settled that one - stallion.
Suddenly, Gleaming's horn-light lit up the darkness, and Gilda's stunned eyes were once again equal to the much-more-stunned thestrals who had been hiding in the stowage-passage.
No sign of Ping, but there were two mares guarding another hatchway, and a swirl of others moving about as the griffons filled the corridor, driving all before them, the ponies of Charlie coming in behind, filling that space to overflowing.
Gilda forced herself to keep moving, and bowled over the two mares, holding them against some coils of rope with her own considerable body-weight.
A tom wrenched open the inner closet hatch revealing a blindfold above a pink beak, and a yellow muzzle. The missing quartermaster, and a hippogriff that Gilda hadn't even noticed was missing.
Gilda was just opening her beak to demand an explanation of Lance Corporal Fish Eye, when the Bit heaved like an earthquake, knocking every griffon, pony, or person in the tight quarters off their feet.
Gilda looked blindly up as every hackle she owned rose in horrified unison.
There are moments when the song of the world stutters.
When the choir of all life loses their place, and the music stops.
When Harmony breaks, and chaos stills.
When the world breaks, and the stars align along the crack, the seam.
And something new enters the world.
On the dying of the strongest day of the thousandth year, the intensely reflected light of the strongest moonrise of a thousand years washed over the Princess's Bit like a tidal wave, a tsunami, a tumbling, tearing, destroying, intense rushing, without pity, without mercy, without empathy or love. Everything that light touched, froze. The light stopped what it touched, locked up, stilled, frozen like a fugitive in the spotlight.
But not everything was still. As the lit world was pinned by the merciless moonlight, the shadows behind everything boiled. As if the imprisonment of our choir had freed them, the things which hide behind us rioted in their sudden freedom. From every pony, every griffon, every creature, a thousand rage-eyed shadows coiled, flared, flamed - lashed into life by that sharp light.
The light, the moon, the stars didn't flicker - but the shadows did.
And the shadows screamed like a million demons birthing.
The alchemists call it the confusion. The conductors call it the dissonance. The prophets call it the moment.
It calls itself nothing at all, because it has no voice. It doesn't, in fact, exist.
Harmony exists, harmony breathes, harmony is us. We speak for harmony, harmony speaks through us, in our failures, our successes, our loves, our hates, our triumphs and our defeats.
But harmony does not exist in the moment. We are alone in the moment.
This is terrifying. The moment is fear, itself. It is the fear of ourselves, alone in the dark, alone with that bright, alien light; alone without ego or identity or empathy or connection, alone with that loneliness shining in our eyes, blinding us to the rest of the world around us.
In the moment, every living thing on the Bit breathed, in and out, dark-dazzled eyes twitching left and right - every pony, every griffon, every thestral, every hippogriff, and even one tiny, terrified perro - stock still and quivering.
Equestrian and Trottish, magus and soldier, sailor and bound quartermaster, every living thing waiting and keeping still, knowing the fear of every Everfree critter that's ever hidden in the darkness, quivering for fear of that unseen terror looking for a pony to eat, that terror on the hunt for our hot heart's blood.
Our airship sat, half-undefended, awkwardly up on a chilling hillside, far enough from the tree-line that ponies could have spotted an assault or a boarding-party coming out of those gloomy, piney woods, even in that darkness.
If they were looking.
If we had thought to look, instead of fighting, or screaming, or staring into the suddenly infinite darkness within our shadows, blinded by the brilliant white light of the moment.
Despite everything, the moonrise took us by surprise.
You don't know the hour or the day, pony, and neither did any of us.
It was just as well that we were the only things on that hillside - not things of the earth, nor hostile ponies, nor predatory griffons, nor even ravenous rocs. It was good that the only thing threatening the Princess's Bit was us, because we were sufficient to the riot in ourselves.
We were alone on the hillside, alone in the world, alone in the dark. And as the world forgot who she was, we forgot with her.
These are the moments when the world forgets who she is, and for an hour, a minute, a second, an instant -
We could be anything. We could be anywhere. You could be anyone.
Anyone at all.
These moments, that the prophets speak of, they come in darkness, by dark of night. They come without a herald, without a trumpet, without a warning.
The prophets say otherwise, but prophets are without honor in their own countries for a damn good reason: nopony who actually knows a prophet would trust them to guard the latrine, let alone the secret workings of fate and destiny. Prophesy is bunk, and you can trust a prophet about as much as a back-alley chandler, or a dockside pimp.
(Even so, Celestia keeps an entire library to hold dragons-hoard of prophecies, the product of centuries worth of earnest prophecy, because all other things aside, Celestia isn't a fool.
And she knows all about moments.
And it is because Celestia isn't a damned fool, that she can't do much about the moments when they came.
Because, you know, when the moments come, only fools matter.
From Well Burn to our mountain's side, all the dead gods know, is three days ride.)
Look, over here, our ship of fools sits out on an open mountainside. We had all been looking inwards, and only one pony was looking up when it happened.
She's not a fool, for all she talks like one, so that pony won't be able to do a damned thing with the moment. She's already had her little moment, and it broke her like a twig. She's done nothing but be carried downhill, downstream, by every little trickle and rivulet that cared to wash her broken twig down from dry land into puddle, swamp, or creekbed.
But the broken twig knows a hoofsaw from a hawk, and the wind is north by northwest tonight.
Let's leave behind that blue, broken bough, bless her heart. She won't be what we remember from this.
(There's another pony looking up, looking towards us, when the moment comes. She's brought all Tartarus burning behind furious blue eyes, and a horn full of power and talent. The ship she stole from Celestia is tearing its own heart out trying to get this mare where she knew, all too late, she had to be.
From Well Burn to our mountain's side in the Bitalian wilds, is three days ride.)
Others, ponies, griffons, turuls and former goddesses who might have mattered, are away from the ship, off on a mortal quest of great import and worldly value.
Tonight, though, is no longer about things the world prizes. Tonight is when we find out what the world should prize. Tonight is when the definitions are re-made in the darkness and the light. Tonight we're naked, without a guide, without a metaphor. No apples, no swords, no books to guide us, no herd to move in.
Just ponies, griffons, and people of every feather and fin, hock and hobble, hoof and paw and talon.
Who is our moment's bellwether, who will form the herd, who will give us the antiphon, who will sing the call to restart the refrain?
The moment's here, but it hasn't gone. We won't know until the end.
Here is the pony who should have been the one, the pony who would have said what it meant, who could have sang it into a song.
Two Pings of the thestral nation isn't who he should have been. His own little moment came days too soon, and he failed but good. He looked, but didn't see. Heard, but didn't understand.
And because he couldn't be one or the other, he'll be neither. He has pissed it away, wasted his gifts and his talents. And, as the prophets said they would have, they were given to somepony else, someone else.
That other one, she doesn't know that she has them, yet.
(The orange unicorn mare knows that the moment is coming. She’s paid the price, learned the secret. Is rushing, even now, too late, too late, but she’s spending every last measure, every last bit, every secret and tool she has to get to the crux-point, this moment in time and space.
But from Well Burn to our mountain side, no matter what bargain you strike, is three day’s ride.)
Let's look back, for just a bit. The last time the world had one of these little fits, another pinkish girl-mare stood before an awful witch, a witch in a dark, lonesome wood. A wicked witch who had wronged the girl-mare's family, neighbors, friends. Done terrible things to her hometown. Had tormented ponies, tortured some, killed a few.
That girl-mare stood at the turning-point of the world, then, and that meant everything, everything she knew, everything your grandmother knew, everything Celestia knew.
One day, one night, the world will drop out beneath your hooves, filly. Leave your happy hills behind, leave behind your apple-trees. Send you into the lonesome valley.
Nopony else can go with you. You have to go by yourself.
Face yourself and the darkness, and find who you are in the dark, when even the world goes away.
That girl-mare, she met the dark, and she sang a new cadence, a new song. And in that dark wood a world away, she restarted that world. But harmony had laid a test in that darkness for her, and she'd failed it, failed her test. Her test of sympathy. She sang revenge instead of forgiveness, rage instead of love. She killed the witch, when she might have saved her. Let her wrath end the matter, end the moment. She meant all the best, she did. But she still failed, and gave in to the wrath, when the moment and her met.
And today the music - the music the world dances its measures to - it carries that note of fury, hate, and vengeance. A generation's song, sung to kill, sung in the key of fury.
(The orange unicorn-mare is a knight of this fury, a pony for this age of sorrows, maddened by that secret chord. It drives her, against the traces, against her fate, to her destiny.
But from Well Burn to our mountain's side, no matter how you strive, is three days ride.)
That was Cadenza's own test, nopony else's. Nopony else could take it for her, solve the problem for her. And we've all lived with the consequences since then. The Princess's Bit is on that hillside, that mountainside, because of the song that little pegasus sang in a dark wood half a world away.
Now, our little ship of fools sits over our own lonesome valley, on our naked hillside.
(Another ship of piratical fools is straining, surging - its failing engine screaming. For, from Well Burn to our mountain's side, try though you might, is three days ride.)
Look around, we're all here, fools alone in the moonlight and the shadows.
Here's another pony who, in another life, in another song, would have had a lifetime of moments. Of tests she feared, but always rose to the occasion for. She would have been what the smart ponies called a paragon of harmony, and virtue, and the wise ponies, a good friend.
This isn't that song. This is the song sung by a broken mare, and we're all bent accordingly. She's still a very good mare, this pony, but she's not this world's pony for moments.
It will be hard on her, and those of us, ponies and griffons alike, she's come to love.
But spare a thought for the pony who could have been great, once. She's still pretty good.
(The engine of the Sol Invictus flares, bursts, dies. Another ship of fools loses head-way, and drops out of the moment. Because, from Well Burn to our mountain's side, though great hearts break, is three days ride.)
And there's her griffon, and it's a great, grand griffon indeed. But this world doesn't love griffons, moments or not. There's something about griffons that harmony dislikes, and griffons, bless 'em, hate right back. That may be why all our myths are about how much the world hates us, and how the world has every reason for it. We are the Fledglings of Gestas, for Gestas was once rude to the Spirit of Harmony, and thus we will ever be the servants of our betters. But Four Winds, I always liked the Fledgelings of Gestas, they're good folk, if you can find them.
This griffon is perhaps the best of all possible herselves, but it won't ever be enough for her. She's never quite got the hang of friendship. She thinks she doesn't have friends; she believes she has subordinates, peers, and superiors. She's good to all of them, despite herself, and despite her low expectations of herself, but they aren't her friends. Maybe she's wrong, but you can't tell her nothing when she's full of self-pity and anger. And that's most of the time. But let it go, let it go.
Her problem is that this is her world, and it's only because it's so cracked and off-kilter that she's been able to be as good as she's been.
Leave that banner-hen of dodgy griffon virtue behind, this is not her moment, nor could it be, if she were up to it, which she… well she might, if she were a little worse than she is.
Moving on…there are various knights of harmonic virtue among us, on and off the ship, with the crew and the squadron. Great and good ponies, and virtuous griffons, and people who aren't either.
(And Celestia's most loyal traitor screams her heart out as her beloved ship begins to coast, their momentum dying in the face of the stubborn evening winds coming down out of the mountains to the west. And from Well Burn with a dying engine it doesn't matter at all that it could have been three day's ride.)
In the end, none of these are for this moment, and it will go badly for many of them, because this is a moment that has been coming for a thousand years.
And here is the mare in the moment, if not of the moment - the reason for all the terror that is warping the minds of otherwise great and good ponies, and good enough griffons, and all the rest.
(Even Celestia’s rebel pirate-paladin, screaming her heart out against the failing of all of her hopes.}
And this great, ancient moon-mare, this once-princess is the reason we're no longer all alone in the terrible light and the dreadful shadows.
She was once a pony, and once a princess, and once, almost, a god.
And that last one was why she broke so badly that her best-beloved sister had to lock her in a heavenly vault for a thousand years.
Sometimes, when harmony returns, and you're gifted an answer, a part in the song, you might wish otherwise. The answer to your prayers is often, heartbreak.
If Harmony were a god, you'd have to hate her. It's for the best that she isn't.
You can't hate a mechanism, or a process, or a way of being. Though ponies often do, despite knowing better.
Harmony is all of that, and less, and more.
Harmony has no ego, no self. There's nothing to argue with, though the song can carry on more of a conversation than you'd think, reading the books they write about her. She's neither a creator, nor a singer, nor a builder, nor even a dreamer.
Harmony is song, it is the music we make together.
She's the sum of all of our parts, in unison, in dissonance, she's the call, and she's the refrain. If all goes right, then there's also something greater, but oftentimes, our parts clash, and the whole is less than the parts by ourselves.
Now, the mare in the moment, our once-and-future princess, is a singer of great repute, but her songs are dreadful, nasty, lowering. She's a one for villain-songs, this one. She only wanted to be loved, but was loved by almost nopony by the time she left this world, and one of them is the one who put her out in the cold.
She is far too much like that blind bat, her follower despite himself, Two Pings.
(She’s even more like her pursuer, her unknown hunter, Celestia’s once-student. But neither know this, nor will they, if they meet each other, as fate is coiling, planning, plotting. Fate is a blind wielder of brutal irony. Fate is harmony’s bane, the death of destinies. Neither is wise enough to fear fate as they should.)
Watch what the once-princess does, in her first moment of freedom after a thousand frozen, crystalline years in stir. Hurting like Hades, raging like Boreas the North Wind, and looking to share.
Watch her spread the misery around, flash-freeze everything moving, everypony watching.
Watch her lash out.
This story may end just like that, and be like Two Pings' worst nightmares, in a frozen apocalypse, because this isn't the Mother of Dreams, this isn’t the thestral dream of justice and redemption, it's just-
"Nightmare Moon!"
Somehow the words squeezed out of Fish Eye arrived in the world without spending any time in her mind. She had no idea what was going on, and then suddenly, her mouth had its way with breath and sense and understanding and-
"SOMEONE KNOWS MY NAME! MARVELOUS! I WOULD HAVE ASKED YOU, YOU SUN-LOVING TRAITORS IN MY SISTER'S TABARDS, WHO I WAS. BUT LOOK AT YOU! MY NAME ON YOUR LIPS - er. BEAK?"
Fish's blindfold suddenly unfolded from around her head, and she could finally see once again, after, it seemed, ages in the dark. She could now see the greater darkness, which she had heard tear open the envelope like a half-cracked egg, and it peered in at Fish Eye alongside a great, monstrous mare, that pony's glowing cats-eyes almost dazzling in the greater darkness of Her doubled presence.
"WHAT IS THIS? WHY IS THERE A CAPTIVE HIPPOGRIFF IN MY SISTER’S TABARD? WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?"
Fish Eye blinked at the great horror, so much like the Dark's mockery of the Equestrians' alicorn princess, and tried not to tremble. The chill breeze was turning into a gale, and the warm summer night was turning bitter and cold.
"BAH, IRRELEVANT. MY PONIES! WHERE ARE THEY? THEY SHOULD BE HERE!"
This was it this was it this was it this was it
She waited in terror for the inevitable, promised question.
"IS THERE ANYPONY HERE WHO REMEMBERS THEIR FIDELITY TO THEIR QUEEN? ARE ANY OF MY FOLLOWERS STILL HERE, TO GREET THEIR PRINCESS?"
"Yes!" Fish Eye screamed with a rictus-grin that threatened to break her beak.
"By all the crushing depths and by the darkest deepest abyssal plains, I will follow you -
"YES!"
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Dang. Hell of a way to close this chapter of the saga. Fascinating look back at all the roads less traveled that got us here, and all the poor souls caught in the ripples. (An unscheduled rest in the worldsong is the best place for mixed metaphors. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Eagerly looking forward to seeing how this mess gets sorted out.
Let’s hope this time Fish Eye’s loyalties don’t result in her having to birth a peace of headwear for a cursed bird Queen.
And thus we find what went wrong. Rage and wroth whence kindness and forgiveness should've been offered. And ripples of Faith descending upon all.
I feel bad for Twilight, for hers is not the fate to be what she once was. I feel bad for Ping too, but he chose to be blind. And for Fish Eye, kind Fish Eye, I wish for the best in service of her new dark goddess.
...I can't help but feel like Fish Eye's sudden acceptance of Nightmare Moon is part of a plan by the goddess of the depths.
The story has been a slow build-up for this very moment, and then it ends. Almost feel a little bit cheated over that. Almost.
The writing is scary good though, superb really. So can't wait for the sequel to come out.
i hate you with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
may you forever stub your little toe on everything in your path.
And then a manic grey Earth pony with sickly poison-green eyes gleaming with the sadism only SCIENCE can generate stepped forth and casually remarked, "Oh hi, Moon!"
NMM stumbled back and breathed in deepest dread the Name that every fanfic character feared, "Alondro..."
Well I think this world is going to never fully heal from that one mistake. I wonder how much Ping is going to get the blame when he finds out that his actions where only helping the enemy?
I'm disappointed that it ends on a cliff hanger but will be reading the next story!
11171186
Considering what her goddess told her to do, highly likely.
I am just imagining a picture of Nightmare Moon with little Fish Eye beside her standing on a rock backlit by the moon, and the phrase Nightmare Moon and Fish Eye against the world, above them in golden letters.
That was… an ending.
I think everyone expected the story to leave things open, but I don’t think anyone saw the story ending like this. It was a fun charming story and there’s obviously more to come but as it is it definitely doesn’t feel complete.
That said, here’s to hoping this story keeps on going another 4 years.
Powerful. A very powerful chapter. The poetry and introspection of the characters, what they are, what they could have been, what they will suffer was powerful.
I am very sad to see this journey into Turul territory around the MLP world will not be completed. It was getting to be a great military campaign with it's problem, it's glory, it's failings and it's progress.
But NMM kind of throw a huge stick in that wheel. No way she is going to make the trip. Or is she? 🤔
I am sure everyone is going to have their moments in this new story but I with the Nightmare on deck, eternal night and demon getting out of shadows, the world is kinda... already dying?
But I absolutely love the idea of pirate Sunset running away from her teacher because of what she learned and became her champion abroad. Well Burn isn't it? Here new home Sound like it's in the Dragon Lands. Will she come to slay the Nightmare? Save her? Who knows but the author that love to inflict us with cruel cliffhangers.
Warn us with a chapter in this story when you start publishing Fool's Night.
If anything about this struck me it's that Griffons are apparently the problem children of the universe, and that Gilda is too pure for this world.
And Sunset, how on earth did I forget about Sunset and her path of piracy? She makes quite an impression for a pony not actually present in this story.
Then there is that, what are you up to mad little hippogriff? Scheming things beyond your ken?
Mercy on this world's weary Trixie, who doesn't bother to claim greatness nor power.
To be honest, I'm sure the airship had one somewhere for emergencies--you know, a "in case of emergency, break glass" sort of thing.
That does sum up Ping's situation nicely.
Hmmmmm....
Indeed she is.
Though sometimes I wonder if she doesn't realize it herself.
Just a heads up, then--I feel like this is going to be a start of a pattern of questions for you, NMM. Because there's a lot of questionable things that have taken place or are taking place on this tub that not even I could totally answer for you.
Dang it, Fish Eye, you had one job and...
...well, actually I guess you did it precisely as instructed, really...
...but still!
11171217
The more I read this comment the more perfect it feels.
11171267
Better question: how much do you think he'll hate himself once he realizes he was only helping the enemy?
11171519
Yeah, how did you forget that? I loved the idea of pirate Sunset from the moment it was brought up in the first fic so much so that I've been quietly a little miffed it's taken this long for the tale to loop back around to her, and just in time for a cliffhanger ending to boot!
"When the choir of all life loses their place"
"When the choir of all life loses its place"?
"ever hidden in the darkn, quivering"
"ever hidden in the darkness, quivering"?
"This was it this was this was it this was it"
"This was it this was it this was it this was it"?
"Cliffhanger ending."
And how! :D
Thank you for writing, and your editors for editing! :D
God damn you good sir, I await the sequel eagerly.
Man that was an incredible conclusion, especially Sunset's piece.
/shaking tiny fist
Damn you and your cliffhangers
/looking forward to your next story
Oh, this not going to go well ....
11171156
If it gets sorted out ....
11171267
When "Fate" and "Harmony" go around hanging everything on "moments" where one persons' actions will decided the "destiny" of the whole world, its bound to go wrong eventually.
My ipod decided at this point of reading to start playing Komm susser todd. From the first eva movies and it was creepily fitting
Huh, I wonder who was the witch Cadance killed. Or maybe it was explained, dunno, it's been so long since i've read the earlier chapters and the previous story.
So, all in all, we can agree it's all Cadance's fault. Figures.
No yarr for you, Pirate Sunset.
Careful there, harmony, or the gryphons will one day bite back against your abuse.
Well, that can only end well.
That was a fun story, can't wait to read the next one.
11187000
Cadence became an Alicorn in most stories (I think this is canon?) by stopping an evil witch. In this world she killed her rather than forgave her.
11192615 Didn't know that. Was it in one of the comics? Doesn't feel like part of the show.
11196245
I don't remember. It's not in the show, but I'm pretty sure it's in a comic or something. Either that or it's just the generally accepted fanfic story of how she ascended.
11196345
It comes from the chapter book Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, which isn't much, but it is what people use for Cadance's backstory, such as it is. It's a very brief little bit of lore that everyone's used as the foundation of all of their cloud-castles about Cadance.
It's about half of a page , and if it weren't in an official Hasbro chapter book, or on a subject that isn't touched upon once elsewhere, nobody would have looked at it twice.
11196438
You work with what you got, not what you want.
As much as the fandom loves its canon characters, they’re not well defined characters in a not well defined world. Applejack, for example, is supposed to be an old school quiet money elite with familial connections and land ownership stretching generations, across the country from the city to the heartland to the frontier. But because the canon focuses on “yeehaw I’m a farmer!” and there’s like 4 named cities in the entirety of Equestria, fans tend to write her as a background character compared the more bombastic, personality driven 5.
I finally let myself read through this, now that its finished. You never fail to impress, and I sure hope Gilda doesn't end up like Sawbones; sacrificed to the altar of good storytelling.
So, how goes the sequel?
11302847
Sorry, have been kind of unproductive since the spring. It's the busy season at work, I'll try to get to work on things come September.
Ish.
(Been busy playing forklift operator and running around trying to keep the place from burning down. Or at least helping along those lines.)
Excellent story!
That Cliffhanger though...
Hope you'll write Fool's Night eventually, I'm sooooo curious to find out how this will resolve in the end.
11303017
Fair enough. You been ok?
11620207
Well enough. But not in a writing place. Passing by, tonight. Honestly, I've been thinking more about a sequel to Applejack Uprooted recently. I've been promising myself Shabbos Apple for a while.
11622691
That’s good, I suppose. And, fair enough. I just get worried, ya know? I’ve seen too many accounts where the user seemingly fell off the face of the earth to not.
This story absolutely had me by the throat. Kept waiting for the inevitable blow-out from all the various secret shenanigans going on, clashing together. Alas.
....you still alive? Sequel still coming?
I don’t have anything specific to comment on, I just want to voice my gratitude for the wild ride that this series has been. Part impressively researched historical fiction, part fever dream. I so often note the love and care you put into (seemingly) unimportant characters and (seemingly) out-of-nowhere plot points. While I do imagine you lose some readers by leaving them guessing or outright baffled so often (sometimes by your use of language as much as your plots), to me it is a kind of magical bafflement. Starting a re-read not long after finishing the two stories the first time, I find myself under that spell again.
Of course, there’s more to this story than being impressively historical, technical, and convoluted. It’s also funny and charming. But that combination of yours is something I’m not able to get anywhere else.