RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

Feb. 2nd, 2020 - The Lamplighter

Neun

No limelight in the land of eternal night; only darkness and the swaying of the few and far-between curtains in the shattered windows of empty city streets. Alone in the nether of the night, a hooded mare treads carefully on three legs down a sidewalk, her hooves avoiding each crisp, wilted tuft of grass.

She stops, sighs and glances upwards to take in the shapes of constellations hung about in the starry sky. From her low vantage point, the wide universe at large is merely cold and cruel. The far away stars, like glinting diamonds, tease of a wealth and purity robbed from the land she’s condemned to inhabit.

The long spear strapped to her bruised shoulder quivers, carrying the fear that crawls down her spine to her nether. The keys of the city strung across her belt glitter but don’t clink. To avoid the noise, she’s long dipped them into melted wax to silence their complaints. They don’t need to open doors anymore.

The spear’s not a weapon anymore either. Its bearers cut its sharp head, useless against darkness. A hook and a wick sit at the tip instead.

The mare stops at a street corner. The cold night air carries the smell of wet, dead grass and rotten laminated wood. She exhales and, once her thoughts are in order, brings the head of the spear down to her face. She needs to be quick.

She trots to the first street pole and leans against its brass body to work with the spear with her only front hoof. She retrieves two stones from her hood and drops the heaviest.

She holds back a swear, hears rock striking cement, and the echoes clatter against the abandoned houses that guard the mare and the city street. Bashful ire ensnares her, but she only has teeth to grind. Not a word to share, for none is here to listen but a pouncing death.

One stone in her mouth, the other under her single leg, she strikes and sparks the wick ablaze. And there was light.

Acht

She stares at the flickering flame dancing on the candlewick snug-fit in the streetlight’s head. The smoky glass cage, greasy and blackened with disrepair and overuse, gives only a faint yellow glow. It barely lights the streetpole’s ornate bronze decoration.

Oil and gas keep it alive, the mare knows, carried to each pole through veins of steel buried deep under the cement-work of the city. She knows that vascular system, but not where its iron heart sits. One day, it will stop beating, pumping the lifeblood she seeks to light across the city.

One day, it will all dry out and night will win.

She moves on to the next pole, bent over at its foot after something heavy struck it ages ago. A cart maybe. Or does steel tire too in the everlasting midnight. She cannot tell.

She raises her spear. And light sparks once again.

Sieben

There is a ruin at this address. A blackened heap of charcoal and dead wood where a house once stood. Only the porch remains, its set of stairs, and a young black filly watching the mare.

She tightens her hood and turns to the next pole. There must be light.

Sechs

A hole stands where the next house should have been. The mare dares not step away from the sidewalk. But the smell is enough to tell her what’s half-buried within. There is no life here.

Light, there is only the light.

Fünf

“What are you doing?”

The filly is back. The filly asks. The filly judges.

There mare looks away and hides in her hood. There is no life here. Do not talk. Do not fret. Raise the spear, light another place. Even death ought not be concealed in the darkness.

Too many ponies are forgotten, lying around her beneath the charred wood, moss-covered concrete and deceased grass.

“There must be light,” the mare says.

Vier

She spoke.

“Are you trying to convince somepony?” the filly asks, trotting alongside the mare.

Everytime the filly goes to touch her with her blackened hoof, the mare jumps away, teeittering on the edge of the sidewalk, avoiding stepping onto the street, the grass, anywhere the light of the street poles do not reach.

“There’s nopony here.” The filly laughs a low chuckle that scrapes her dry-sounding throat. “Who are you trying to sway?.”

The mare raises her spear once again.

Drei

“Are you trying to peddle hope like a snake-oil peddler?”

“You do not exist,” the mare blurts out, catching her mouth with her hoof and falls face first against the sidewalk.

The filly’s laughter rings in her ears. The mare opens her eyes and sees her spear out of reach, and the filly lording over it, her yellow-slit eyes staring at the lit-up wick with oozing hatred.

“I am.”

The mare kicks her hindlegs. Her hood tears against the concrete. Her skin too. She screams and snags the spear in her teeth, and strikes.

Zwei

Alone at last, she finds her bearing against the nearest light pole. Beheaded. The address will never see the light again.

The mare shakes her head and hobbles forward. She sees the next pole. Only a few steps forward.

The spear harnessed in her teeth, she tip-hooves her way to the future guiding light. Her side is sticky and hot. The iron smell of her own blood stings her nostrils. The night has teeth.

She opens her eyes and finds herself lying at the foot of the pole. She fainted. Her eyes shoot wide, blood pumping to her head, and she catches her unlit spear discarded by in the dead grass of the abandoned house by her side.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

She shot a glance back. The filly stands there, bleeding steaming red from her struck mouth. She speaks, but her jaw doesn’t shift. Her voice flitters past her mangled teeth.

“Why did you come here, lamplighter?” she speaks, her words echoing in the mare’s head. “I think you just want to hurt.”

The filly lifts her hoof and the world is black again.

Eins

End of the road, end of the line. There is but one lamp left to light to keep up the nightly fight. For it to end and start once again. To keep the demon-mare back. The black filly is back too, staring from the dark outer edge of the gaslight’s reach. Two mangled holes, no teeth, just one gaping throat. Her voice, a whisper like the wind that comes crawling out of her jagged and rocky mountain gullet.

“Get back, fiend!” the mare cries out, swinging her long torch like an ablaze spear. But the filly doesn’t step back. The mare did and her voice, at first a shout, crackled like a weak twig. “I shall not go crazy tonight.”

Darkness oozes from the child, invisible, and yet palpable. The smell of rotten egg, her burning eyes like the smoke of a forest fire blasting past through her.

“I shall give hope to this town.”

“You shall give them lies.”

“I shall fight you back.”

“You give them something that doesn’t exist. This world doesn’t have what you seek.”

“It must be done.”

“Because you want to reassure yourself, you’re dragging everyone down in delusion.”

“Silence, Nightmare!”

She swings her spear and strikes at the fiend. But there is only smoke and the loud, crashing sound of the lamp pole she cut down. The town shall not be lit up whole tonight.

Null

“Are you asleep, or dreaming, Farola?”

Farola falls to her knees and crawls into a ball as the cold lick of the monster latches onto her hinds, back, neck… and eyes. Forced open to see outlines in the blackness, she stares at the filly’s cheeks, tensing over a missing jaw. A smile.

“Can you even tell anymore?”

Comments

[Ice Star]

Oh, so this is where all your stories went! In awe at the size of this absolute unit of an anthology you've got going here.

[RoMS]

10091248
Thanks, they are testament to how I improved while learning the language. I.e. just a little.

[Ice Star]

10091263
Well, it's good to see they aren't gone for good.

[RoMS]

10091268
I don't want to delete stuff I wrote, but also they don't deserve to stand on their own. Using the new anthology feature seems like a good compromise.

[Ice Star]

10091272
It is; thank you for it. I'm always trying to track down stories to figure out why/if they're deleted when they go missing.

[Pocketbot]

326K words? Gonna make some popcorn first, I'm gonna be here a while.

[RoMS]

10092066
This is here to be seen, not to be read.
In retrospect, most of this is so bad. x)