The Fallen
Multiple thoughts ran through Ray’s head as he watched the figure walk from the shadows and into the dim light of the crystal. The first thing he found were the eyes of the creature, cloudy ovals with the faintest taint of blue, whether from the light or naturally, he had no clue. The face revealed itself then, the same cloudy white-blue as the eyes, though slightly dimmed. He realized that the being was almost translucent, and he was able to see the barest outline of the skull. It’s face was equine, and he was even able to derive that the being was a stallion. A horn stuck out of its head, meaning that whatever it was, pony or otherwise, it was something more magical.
The body of the stallion emerged from the shadow next, revealing a luminescent smaller chest than an Earth pony, but broader than most unicorns he’d seen. The ribs stuck out of the side ever so little, almost as if the pony hadn’t eaten in weeks, which considering the place they were in, wasn’t very hard to imagine. There was a slight glimmer to his body, probably from the dampness of the deepest level of where they were. The stallion’s legs were as thick as Big Mac’s, the bones unseen from the amount of muscles covering them. He assumed that the glow came from the flow of blood the creature had, that or just something only magic could explain.
The stallion didn’t start the rest of the way out of the shadow, instead he searched Ray. The gaze had an intensity to it that he wasn’t able to understand possible from a pupilless creature. It pierced him, searched him like an artist searching a painting, but he held the gaze strongly, not even daring to blink. It seemed to the spectral looking pony that it didn’t matter as to how intimidating Ray tried to seem, as he simply blinked, as if doing such was no weakness in mental conversation. The stallion, despite being well smaller than Ray and well outranked by the Princess, was in complete control here. There was a doubt in Raymond’s mind, a doubt as to why and how exactly a stallion of this magnitude could be in equine hell, but it vanished as the pony spoke.
“Lordling, I am honored by your descendance to our forbidden reaches.” The pony’s voice was deep, but not Big Mac deep, and as soft as Fluttershy’s. His intense gaze continued to search him as he spoke. “My name is Skalos, General-in-Chief of the Fallen, but I will presume Twilight has not told you of us. I wouldn’t be surprised, listening ears would find no fondness for the armies of Inner Plate and Hero Gauntlet.”
Ray shot an expectant look to Twilight, who spoke up even before it reached her. “Raymond -er, Ray- this is Harbor Point, the current leader of the Redeemed, as we ponies call them. At least, Celestia, Cadance, Luna, and I, since we’re really the only ones that do know them. Anyways, he and his ponies will be training you. They have had much more experience with the blade, and would help you better. They’ll also be fighting by your side against the minotaurs.”
“Wait, how many of them are there?”
“Seventeen thousand and twenty two,” the luminescent stallion, Skalos, answered immediately.
“What,” he shouted, turning back to the alicorn.
“Let me explain,” she interrupted, before Skalos quietly spoke up.
“No, I think I should.” Ray turned to him, his glare faltering under the unbreaking stare of the pony. He turned and began walking away, before looking back and saying, “Walk. Any form of physical activity will calm you, but the slower you are, the slower your heartbeat, and thus the slower actions come.” Looking at Twilight, he said, “Stay with the lift, if you will. The Harkening is no place for any decent creature, especially a Princess.” Twilight nodded affirmation.
As they continued on into darkness, Ray’s eyes began to adjust so that the only thing he saw was the glowing form of Skalos. The ground was smooth as glass though, and firm as the stone it was, giving him no reason to fear falling to the ground. It was in the true darkness that he noticed that Skalos had no fur, mane, or tail, as if they had been shaved completely off and replaced with the glowing that seemed to fuzz his figure. A solemn, uneasy silence filled the void of the dark, pressure forming from the press of Ray wanting to ask why he was here if there was an army to fight the minotaurs against the silent will of Skalos. Skalos’s will for silence held, and Ray trudged on in abject quiet.
In the distance, something glowing caught his attention, something they were heading towards, but it was then that Skalos spoke.
“The Princess was being too kind to us. My kind are not the Redeemed, but the Fallen. She is a good Princess, and I won’t hear anything ill of her, even if it means standing against one who isn’t cursed as one of us. Though, you may say that, you, too, are doomed to fight, for your life and those you love dearly. Tell me, lordling, for whom do you fight? Under whose banner and authority will you battle?” Skalos once again looked over his shoulder to the human as he questioned him.
“Myself. I fight under my own will and fight not in the name of Equestria, but for Equestria,” Ray answered after a brief pause. “I don’t blame Twilight for what she did to me, especially after meeting some of the ponies, but it doesn’t mean bygones are bygones. I’m presuming you know exactly what she did, given how you know why I’m here better than I do. What is it, exactly, anyways?”
“We, lordling, will fight under you and by your side when the time for war comes.” Skalos looked back forwards suddenly, cutting off as the glowing from before was suddenly in front of them. “We are here, lordling. Welcome to the homeland of the Fallen.”
Skalos’s voice betrayed disappointment, though there seemed no reason to be, unless it was in the fact that they were there at all. The luminescent pony continued under the crescent of glowing blue, an entrance to something, he was sure. The gateway was big enough that Ray didn’t need to duck underneath the glowing arch. When they came to the other side, all he could see was the continual darkness, the dampness of the murky black wetting his skin as much as ever.
However, in the farthest distance, he thought he could see something, some form of light in the dark. They looked almost like stars from this distance, light blue in color like the archway they had just passed under. There was a sense of misery here, different from the usual solemn and forlorn gloom that usually clung. Well, as usual as he had seen in the place after fifteen or so minutes.
The steady clopping of Skalos’s hooves on the stone ground began to make Ray uneasy. The sound echoed in the blackness, easily the loudest sound he’d heard in the gloom since leaving the first level. The pony himself seemed to glow brighter, another source of anxiety as they made their way to an unknown destination. He was now like a beacon in the dark, glowing brighter than the sun, or so it seemed, at least in the darkened area they traversed. He tried to force a chuckle at his foolishness, but found his throat had tightened like a vice, muscles steel hard. He forced a swallow, nervously looking around. Nothing. Visible, another voice added in his head.
Skalos began to slow, however, not too far from the lights, but also not so close either, maybe less than halfway. He turned completely to Ray, face grim, as he spoke.
“It is probably best to tell you exactly what and whom you are about to walk into and with. If you were to ever ask Twilight about who we were, she would give you a vague, nondescript history of us. What I’m about to tell you is the history of the Fallen, and the reason they are among the lowest in Tartarus.”
The unicorn stallion’s horn lit, and suddenly, Ray could see it all. There was a vast length of ponies, mostly pegasi and Earth ponies, as far as the eye could see in any direction. They stood at the crest of a browning hill, a solid line of spears, swords, and bows, held in hoof, teeth, or by magic. Determination, hatred, and no small amount of fear filled the eyes of the ponies, their lines firm but shifting from hoof to hoof. A roar sounded behind him, causing him to turn and face another force, this one charging the group on the hill.
A volley of arrows filled the blue sky, shadows passing over the charging force of ponies. The original force broke as hundreds of arrows slammed into their ranks, felling those who had no shield or magic. Bones crunched, ponies screamed in pain and agony, and steel clashed on steel. The few unicorns or lucky Earth ponies who hadn’t been struck were trampled through by the wave of charging ponies. They went down almost without a fight, too caught between the still falling arrows and charging ponies to block both. The same was playing out across the brown field and along the hill’s crest, ponies killing each other for a reason unexplained to Ray.
The vision began to focus on a particular pony in the mess, one that looked to be no older than Rainbow Dash, and no younger than him. He had shocking purple fur with a yellow mane, a purple horn sticking out from the tangle. Skalos, he presumed. The pony charged through with a determination, like one fighting not to win, but not to die. He had a spear strapped to his right side, ramming it through his adversaries before pulling back and charging again. The processes repeated twice, before finally the last of the ponies crumbled and retreated or were killed.
Scene flashed, and Ray could see the same lines of ponies leaving a burning village. Skalos was one of the last to leave, stepping over and around the bodies of stallions, mares, and foals. Arrows, spears, and swords, all broken or abandoned scattered the battleground or stayed stuck in the bodies of those who had opposed them. He had a grim but satisfied look on his face, as he and the rest of the large wave of ponies left the burning and bloody village. Smoke was the only thing to bid them on their way.
The scene flashed again, this time to the crowd of thousands not marching, but kneeling. Before them stood a certain Princess of the Night, shouting at them in the loudest voice Ray had ever heard. She scorned them, drove them down for their misdeeds. At first, he wondered if the ponies had failed her in their service, but then he heard the words that broke many of the stallion’s resolve. Traitors. Thieves. Liars, brutes, cowards. Murderers.
Ray placed a hand over his mouth to stop him from dropping his jaw as the vision ended. The darkness returned, but the visions of the dead ponies remained his eyes. Those ponies lay dead in nearly the same manner as the minotaurs had left them in Ray’s nightmares. So many. Hundreds at least. Killed in the village streets, their homes, or running from a terror that would end their life without second thought. Exactly like the dreams.
Slowly his eyes went down to a firm standing Skalos, his eyes searching Ray’s. He glared silently at the stallion, but saw something in his eyes. A glint of something, something that Ray was very familiar with. Self loathing. A hatred worse than any Ray had ever seen, worse than his hate for Twilight had been. The hatred reserved for the worse of misdeeds and most terrible of sinners,. There was no denying that Skalos had participated in such atrocious deeds, he could see it as clear as crystal in the glowing pony’s eyes.
“I have many questions, the most pressing, though, is why,” Ray said, voice harder than his face gave away.
Skalos gave a long, drawn out sigh that bore the self loathing and tiredness of a hundred years. “I don’t even remember exactly what we were promised, other than that we all -and I mean all of us- thought it was the only way to avoid absolute destruction,” Skalos answered, his voice feeling as tired as his sigh. “We may have been promised glory, fortune, fame, it really wouldn't have mattered, I don’t think, as long as it meant never meeting the wrath of Sombra in battle. We were selfish beings then, a young, easily convinced group of stallions who had come for an adventure, but found war was as war is. Terrible, bloody, and depressing. We lost hundreds, and all of us had seen the many terrible ways to go.
“We wanted to be spared from that, so we deduced that, if Sombra was already winning and we were already losing, why fight to die? We turned sides, and were sent to destroy the villages of the Opotimare Valley. You now know it as Ponyville, but fifteen hundred years ago, it was a growing, abundant land of greens, blues, and yellows. Oh, destroy it we did, down to the last foal, and burned to the last strand of wheat, until the only living things were the field animals.
“Luna herself hunted us with her portion of the army, encircled us and starved us to the point of surrender. Once again, we took the cowards route. Instead of the gallows, like that of all traitors, we were sentenced to fight again, cursed to the deepest level of Tartarus for whenever, if ever, Equestria needed us again. We were cursed to live with our deeds, and slowly, we all died off from our bodies of flesh. Luna’s Curse was not so easily availed, however, and we shed our bodies for our physical spectral forms.”
Skalos paused after that, looking keenly to Ray, who was now using his hand to rub his chin. The part about spectral bodies he had no idea on, other than the fact that it meant the unicorn in front of him was glowing and partly translucent. No, what he did understand was that this pony in front of him had seen war, and was at least fifteen hundred years old, by his account. He had been born and died before the mental blocking, the last of the ponies that could fight preserved for a time like this.
“So why does Twilight need me,” he wondered out loud.
Skalos chuckled dryly, a pitiful sound. “We Fallen aren’t at all the best tacticians in the world. The smartest of us hasn’t been able to even challenge Twilight in a battle of chess, and the strongest of us are too eager to get out there again to consider all factors. When it comes to war, lordling, you will find that we are the fighters of it, not the planners. If we were to go against the minotaurs in battle, our full might against theirs, I’m sure we would lose as easily as a foal against a stallion.”
“So I’m here for my intelligence,” Ray questioned. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart, two grades ahead when he had quit school to make money, it was more that he wasn’t smart enough. Sophomores were smart in comparison to middle schoolers, but they weren’t even old enough to drive, some of them. How was he, two years younger, supposed to fight against the mettle of a completely foreign race and their battle strategy?
“You’ll find, lordling, that in the heat of battle and the cold before, you can become something nopony but a princess could comprehend,” the Fallen suddenly spoke, answering his question. Despite the solemness of his tone, a silly thought entered his head, one he didn’t have time to block before it crept out of his mouth.
“Are you psychic?”
The spectral pony let out a coarse, but true, scoff, chuckling a little afterwards. “No, no I don’t think I am, lordling,” he answered. “Just good at reading feelings. You see, I’ve had to learn to read feelings, ever since I became the leader of the Fallen. It’s a very precarious job, being a leader, especially when those you lead, including yourself, don’t think they deserve their new life. Oh yes it is life, Princess Celestia made sure of that. We have food, and water and some varying forms of entertainment, but, alas, the most common -of which I am guilty- is brooding.”
“So wait, I figured you might be the leader of… you guys, but what I want to know is why?”
“I took both of Twilight’s castles and a knight,” the spectral stated simply. “That and the fact that I’m rather good at making ponies not stick themselves on their own spear.”
“Ah. Makes sense. Wait, you guys have weapons? In the bottom of pony hell?”
“Well yes. If Twilight or Celestia had needed us urgently and immediately, we would be quicker to the fight already stocked than not at all. There’s no fear of fight breaking out between us, nor us rebelling. We may all be cowards and traitors, but we all made an oath to each other before our betrayal that we were brothers and sisters in war to the day we fall. As for rebellion, the Princesses -or Princess now- is the only one that travels down here, and she would easily escape. Besides, we’ve tasted treachery before, and it isn’t a dish we would favor to taste again.”
Skalos turned once again, moving towards the clustered light in the near distance. “Come, lordling. I believe you should meet your fellow soldiers.”
Ray nodded in agreement, a note of sadness in Skalos’s voice causing him to feel a sort of pity for the pony. True, he and his kin had betrayed their own, but there seemed to be more to them then their treachery. They had been at the bottom of a dark, damp, cold hole for almost fifteen hundred years, and that seemed to have seeped in more self loathing and regret than anything else Raymond had seen on the streets. Apparently, they were unworthy of anything for centuries old sins, but as far as he’d seen thus far, there was nothing incriminating them of their deeds other than Skalos’s words.
A thick silence blanketed his thoughts as the blue lights came closer into view, receiving rough dimensions of the shapes around him. He was surprised to find that the ceiling was merely a foot above his head, and reaching up, he was even more surprised to find it soft and wet. Moss, he thought, and confirmed as he took a clump off and felt it better in his hands. The moisture stored inside seeped out at the slightest touch, and curiously, the cool water tasted sweet, like sugar had been instilled in it. A small smile crossed his face. Mags and the others would have gone crazy here, especially the twins.
The lights came from stalactites that hung low enough to the ground that even the smallest foal wouldn’t have been able to cross under it. The stalactites hung almost exactly the same distance apart, though the levels of light emitted from them varied. Though what they lit, he had no clue, as the blue light only covered the expanse of empty ground in all directions. There seemed to be no visible barriers beyond the cavern’s ceiling and the smooth floor. Here and there, a patch of drooping plant sprouted or a mound of moss dotted the floor, but otherwise stone colored blue by the light was all to be seen in any direction. It was the look of sorrow, he realized, designed to make the inhabitants feel weary and forlorn, whilst also reminding them of the color of tears they shed.
Finally, after more silent walking, he saw a lighter hole in the blue darkness, like an uneven spot in a canvas of darker light blue. As they came closer, he could hear the sounds of clopping, the ringing of hooves on stone. Others, he thought excitedly. Others who were to be like him, weapons in a war against the steelmakers themselves. He gulped, wondering briefly about his reasoning to be here. He was to lead these ponies into battle, wasn’t he, but was he worthy to command them? Who was he to claim their banners as his own, and lead their lives to be spent in battle? Then again, Twilight wouldn’t have brought him here if she hadn’t deemed him worthy.
They neared close enough to the hole that he could see through it, into another bleakly lit room, although this one seemed different. The lighting was more to the violet side of the color spectrum, not the usual pale blue he’d become to guess was the standard here. The second thing that caught his eye was that, save for a short distance out of the hole, the ground was nonexistent. It ended jaggedly with only telltale signs of pace below, mostly from the clopping of hooves on stone and the dull whispering hum of voices. Not enough to elaborate detail on what was out there, but enough to give him the picture. A balcony, overlooking hundreds, no thousands of ponies, if he was correct.
He took a deep breath, making his face stony. He remembered something he’d read once, about creating a fire in his heart and burning away everything that was swirling around there. He closed his eyes, imagining a small, wicker of flame barely knee-high, and fed his nervousness, his fear, his uncertainty, and his confusion into the fiery void. They burned away, and left his chest feeling light, like it was full of air. A slow, cooled mask of sureness covered his face, and he drew himself up, a new sense of steady confidence pressing him on.
He looked down to Skalos, who seemed to know what he was doing. The Fallen simply nodded to him, encouraging him on. He had to ask, though.
“Are they out there?” A nod. “All of them?” Another nod.
Ray took a deep breath, stepping towards the hole, before stopping once more. Turning, he asked, “Well, are you coming too? This isn’t a one man -er, creature job. You’re their leader right?”
“No, I was their leader,” Skalos answered swiftly. “You’re their leader now. Only those ordained by the Princess can lead them into battle.”
“And what about when there’s no battle to fight? They’ll need one of their own, one who understands them.”
“Aye, that is true,” the spectral agreed, looking to the hole again. A wry grin broke his somber tone, and he looked back over to Ray. “You know, they’ve been waiting for you three hours now. Might want to get out there before they get restless.”
“Alright then, let’s go,” Ray said, turning to the hole and began walking out to greet the crowd, the steady clopping of hooves on stone accompanying him from behind. He had to duck through the hole slightly, but not enough to obscure his view any.
He had entered onto an open balcony of stone, stairsteps on either side leading down into the crowded amphitheater before him. As soon as his head was out, he could see this room was very different from the chamber from which he’d come. For one, the open area’s ceiling was not only at least thirty feet above, but also visible. The entire space was well lit by beaming blue and white crystals, all as tall as him and twice as thick. The ceiling was not the only thing visible, as the far walls of the cave were seen despite being at least a mile away in either direction.
On the distant walls, homes and streets were carved into them, inspiring a very cluttered feeling. They weren’t anything fancy or impressive, just stone boxes with windows and doors facing the amphitheater. Roads, narrow and gray, zig-zagged along the houses, leading away from one cluster of houses to another, all carved into the wall. The far walls were circular almost, slightly more angular, but still in the general shape. More crystals lit them, some on stone poles like lanterns and others on the ground, all without seeming pattern to it. Houses lined every surface and level of the walls, from the base to the ceiling, all looking similar to each other but placed unevenly so that in some parts it looked clumped together chaotically, while in others there were sparsely any for a hundred feet.
From the large town, the winding roads lead down to a large, open courtyard. Glowing cave plants grew along the side of the road, and small, glowing tree-like plants growing only three to four feet tall. Empty stone buildings with open sides and wide entrances dotted the plain, empty roads leading to and from them. Here and there, where the glowing plants thinned out, a pole with a crystal glowing on top was posted, lighting the otherwise dim area.
Ray took a breath as he took several steps forward, to the edge of the borderless balcony.. Silence had taken hold of the entire amphitheater, save for (once again) the sharp sound of hooves on stone. They could see him, he could feel it. Thousands of eyes peering up at him, searching him, taking in the sight of a human. He didn’t look down at them, not initially. It wasn’t out of fear or self consciousness, no, moreso out of a thought that he should be known first before he knew them. Finally, after several strained seconds that not even the slightest murmur broke, he looked down at them.
Hundreds upon thousands of eyes stared back, a horde of glowing spectral ponies. They all shared the same type of eyes as Skalos, milky, with the slightest coloration to it. Unlike Skalos, however, they were all different colors. A faint gray with white, a fainter blue with white, it was always the lightest versions of different colors, like the color of the ponies’s coat was now in the glow they gave. Some had horns, others had wings, but most common among them were Earth ponies, featureless save for a larger build than their comrades. All and the same, they stared up at him, and he stared back, giving them more time to assess him.
There was a mood among them, one he could feel in the air as much as see in their eyes. They were broken, battered, beaten by centuries of life in a cave with only themselves and their memories of treachery. They seemed hopeless, like they had no purpose now but to die fighting for a country they didn’t deserve to call their own. He could understand them, as easily as reading a book. And he needed to fix that, somehow.
“Breath, lordling,” Skalos whispered softly from his left side.
He did so, taking low, shallow breaths that barely raised his chest, but calmed his hammering heart. Where was that fire he’d used so shortly? He redid it, his slowing heart allowing the fire to thrive, but not grow. It consumed his worry, his stress, and untightened his throat, allowing him to speak if he wished. Which he didn’t, but he knew he had to.
“Fallen,” he called out, as if they hadn’t already had their attention drawn to him already. “I want to introduce myself. My name is Raymond Deang, though you can all call me Raymond, or if nothing else, Ray. We all know why I’m here, and why you’re now preparing for war. We all have a duty here, whether by our design or not, and we need to fulfill it.
“Your leader, Skalos, has told me of your past, your treachery almost fifteen hundred years ago. You have a chance now, a chance to become not the Fallen, but the Redeemed, serving a new and just cause, to protect those that can’t protect themselves. You have a new beginning at hand -er, hoof, and you must take that to finally rid yourselves of your guilt.
“I was like you once. I… I did things that were bad, worse than that, terrible things. I had no life where I came from, no friends, and no purpose. Now I’m here with you, to lead you, to fight with you, and die with you, if it comes to that. I want your trust, no, I need your trust in order for us to fight in unity. There are some, what, seventeen thousand of you in here, aren’t there? You are a force to be reckoned with, from what I’ve seen. You call yourselves cowards, but you took the brunt of a Princesses might face up, and those of you still here have taken it for a millennia and a half. You call yourselves weak, but you had enough strength in you to cause a -a Princess to come to stop you. I don’t know how many other armies were so strong as to take a Princess to defeat them, but it can't be many.
“Finally, I’m more than your leader, I’m your support. I wouldn’t feel safe fighting with you if I didn't know you. I want to know each of you, at least by name, until I can call out each and every one of you like a sibling, or friend. It may sound self righteous, it probably is, but I do want to know who I’ll fight with, and at whose side I’ll be buried when I die, if it’s in the field, that is. There is hope for Equestria, a small glimmer, but it is hope. That hope is you. You will be the army to save Equestria. Not me. I’m just some kid with some brains, nothing too special. I will fight with you and try my best, but it’s you who will decide our fate.”
He finished his stumbling speech, but having nothing else to say, he yelled, “For Equestria,” raising his fist as he did so in a sort of salute.
Apparently that was the right thing to say, as the amphitheater erupted with the thunder of voices cheering and hooves stamping on the ground. Within seconds, the whole crowd was on their feet, yelling and shouting indiscernible things over each other. How had this crowd, who had looked so broken and worn by the tests of time and the battle of the mind, turned to a cheering, courageous…
He could see it suddenly. There was a solemnness to their cheering, like they were cheering at the end of the world. For them, it was actually. Their world had been living amongst the shadows and in the rocks, with only plants to give them light. Now, they had something to look forward to. Victory, or the sweet release of death. Ironic how before they were the Fallen, they had yearned to lengthen their life with their treachery, and now that they were, they wished it to be over. He knew he had to do something for these ponies, something to encourage them not to just run up to the enemy for a quick death.
A thought struck him, through the continued cheering and celebrating that the Fallen’s lives were now more than dull existence and memories, reaching into the depths of his mind. The probability that Twilight would follow up with it and even the question of its possibility were in question, but it would be the perfect thing to motivate them. It would also help them reintegrate into pony society, if they all got through the war, that is. A sentimental and foolish thought, a voice in the back of his mind said. Screw off, he responded without a second thought.
A tapping on his knee brought him back to the amphitheater, the cheers dying down at last. He looked down to find a smiling Skalos.
“Inspiring words, lordling, but a bit stammered,” the spectral said.
“Eh,” Ray responded with a shrug. “That’s the second speech I’ve given today. I’d say I was pretty good.”
“Oh, I wasn’t saying you weren’t, it was just a bit, sudden,” Skalos abridged.
Ray’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Well, whaddya mean?”
“Nothing, just that they weren’t expecting you to care about them. They were sitting by rank, you know, presenting themselves professionally, and then you go in with a speech on hope and redemption. It’s no wonder that Twilight chose you for this task. You seem to be a general without training.”
A hint of bitterness snuck into Ray’s mind at the mention of being chosen by Twilight, but he purged it out with fire. It was still burning, actually, and slowly, he suffocated it. He smiled and asked, “So, are you the one that’s gonna train me?”
“Yes, me and a few others.,” Skalos answered. “We’ll start next Thursday, in the open fields outside of Ponyville, somewhere near where Twilight said your house is. Until then, enjoy the fact that you now have the dedication and devotion of seventeen thousand dead ponies. Me included.”
He turned away to the hole again, and Ray followed.
“What’re we doing now,” he inquired after the Fallen.
“Returning you to the Princess,” he responded, continuing to walk into the noticeably smaller looking cavern.
“That doesn’t sound like getting to know the others to me,” Ray said, stopping halfway through the hole.
Skalos stopped, peering back over to Ray with a raised eyebrow. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
Ray returned the look with a sly grin. “Yes, I do believe I am.”
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Yes. Even if it's a small chance. It's still a chance.
10401670
It's a chance, not a guarantee.
10402159
I know. Still. Hope is there.
10402379
Yes, but these are ponies we're talking about. Timid, innocent, happy ponies that live very strictly to the rules. They are exactly how they're portrayed in the show, so they would be shocked if somepony young was doing alcohol. Alcohol is a very adult thing, as it can lead from a sip to waking up in a stranger's bed or with a stranger in your own. It also affects your psychology, your physiology, and your relations with other people. While I'm not saying it shouldn't be used, I think it should be used rather sparingly.
10402381
They did tell her that he should, but not what. The glimpse Luna had at Ray's memories would've been a terrifying find. Would you allow such things among your children without further explanation?
Ray gets to lead an undead army. Are they going to be like the oathbreakers for Return of the King, a wraith army or are they going to be more the draugr?
10402742
So, they're kinda like the wraith army, although a lot less obligatory and a lot more guilty. They wouldn't mind death, but they also would look forward to living longer. I will admit, I did base them slightly off of the wraith army, but they are much more ambient and important. They are literally the only thing defending Equestria, whereas the wraiths fought grudgingly for and alongside men.
ray making up with Twilight seems like a death flag for me. Twilight has a form of plot armor so my money's on ray to die at the end.
Mostly after pulling off a hell mary.
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Ray and Twilight making up isn't a degrading or thickening of plot armor. More realistically, it's a realization of a common goal. Ray is seeing exactly what he needs to see to regain hope in life, and Twilight' telling him (or showing him) everything she knows about their situation. In the story, Ray realize that either way, he's screwed, but hey, why not go out with a bang? But he has a better chance of living and fighting as long as he can. I'm being vague in case you didn't read the next chapter.