Catching Up
At the base of Foal Mountain, hidden amongst the trees, were stone ruins long since forgotten. Eight ponies of all different shapes, ages, and sizes all milled around the decrepit stone structures in the afternoon air. The early fall air swept over the trees and provided an early chill, one that was being held at bay by a small campfire set in the ruins.
“How bad was it?” The loaded question fired from Starswirl’s lips to shatter the silence that had fallen over the makeshift camp. The Pillars had resisted Twilight’s attempt to move out and head towards Manehattan, instead opting to rest for the night where they had reappeared. They had a small vigil going where the Pony of Shadows had appeared and been immediately vanquished. They wanted to spend the day and night here to remember their friend.
“Initial estimates say close to three hundred thousand dead or missing. Mostly earth ponies and pegasi.” Twilight prodded the small crackling fire with a stick, sending embers into the air. “A third of the population of Equestria…wiped out in thirty-six days.”
“Cities were traps.” Starlight joined in. “Ponies were told to stay inside, so when unicorns started to change you just had massive apartment blocks filled with ponies who couldn’t escape their loved ones and neighbors.” That brought a renewed silence over the area and drew the other Pillars closer. “Canterlot itself was the biggest trap of them all. Only way off of the mountain was by train or flying…any non-unicorn was dead even before the princesses glassed it.”
“Glassed it?” Starswirl raised an eyebrow.
“Using raw magic to burn down a place until the ground is flat and melted. It makes it look like glass.” Twilight explained as the glassing of Ponyville replayed in her head at the mere mention of the act. “It was done to Canterlot and Ponyville.”
“Why didn’t the pegasi leave the cities?” Flash Magnus, the ancient pegasus commander, joined the group. “Fly away, go to Cloudsdale or some far away mountaintop? Set up fortifications, patrols.”
“They didn’t want to leave their friends, their family.” Twilight answered as she stared into the crackling fire. “Imagine your wife, or one of your kids, turning and you can’t bring yourself to kill them. You can’t even attack them. You freeze. Then you’re dead instead of them.” She had heard that exact story so many times in the paper or over the radio. Love prevented survival.
“One-thousand years of change. One thousand years of building a better world, and all it did was aid Bullion’s plan.” Starswirl snarled. “How foalish I was not to just destroy it.”
“Why didn’t you?” Twilight asked. “You could’ve tossed it into limbo. Cast it into the void. Anything else but just leave it there.” She looked her hero right in his steely blue eyes. “Why didn’t you do something when you had the chance?”
“There was always a treacherous little thought that we might need it someday.” The mage removed his hat and ran a hoof through his white mane. “This was before I met my compatriots here. Before I trusted non-unicorns. Bullion was gone and we had a new shared homeland, but I always thought there was a chance for them to betray us. If we gave the other two races too much power, what would happen if they saw the unicorns as useless?” The stallion shook his head. “It was my trump card until I just gradually forgot about it over the years.”
“Well I can’t blame you.” Flash Magnus nodded as he sat down next to the other Pillar. “We pegasi always preached being on guard about you guys, even after unification. We never knew what the unicorns were capable of, especially if we did or said the wrong thing. There was always a fear you would just stop moving the sun and moon…”
“Yes, but you didn’t have a doomsday weapon in your back pocket.” Somnambula, the peach colored pegasus with adornments from her homeland added. She tacked on something in a language Twilight didn’t understand but that was undoubtedly an expletive.
Flash only grunted in response.
“Can we stop talking about this for a moment?” Mistmane, the eldest of the Pillars, hobbled over to the small cadre of conversationalists. While she was old and looked about as sturdy as a cardboard box after a thunderstorm, she still had a certain vibrancy to her. The Pillar of beauty had not wilted at all over her many long years. Her gray mane billowed behind her like an early morning fog as she grabbed Starswirl and pulled him to his hooves. “Come, say something about Stygian. Honor our friend.”
“He was no friend of mine.” Flash Magnus grumbled and shook his head. He then turned to Starlight and Twilight. “He got his feelings hurt once and turned to the darkness. Betrayed us all and we wasted our lives to trap him…”
“Yeah, that’s not relatable at all.” Starlight let out a sigh and shook her head. “I’m going to go…secure the area…or something.”
“I’ll come with you.” Flash offered as both ponies stood and trotted off into the trees around the clearing.
So, being left alone, Twilight stood up and joined the other Pillars around the giant stone bowl in the center. The once rough edges were now as smooth as glass where Twilight’s fury had touched it. The bottom of the bowl was scorched completely black from the beam she had let loose at the Pony of Shadows.
“He was a confused colt.” Starswirl said with a sigh as he put his belled hat back on. “Beset on all sides by the darkness within.” For the first time since properly meeting him, Starswirl had actual pain in his voice. There was no malice, just pity and hurt. “Foalish to think he could control such power like that. If we had done what needed to be done back then instead of leaving it to an interloper…”
“We shoulda seen the signs a long time before the need to do anythin’ like this.” Meadowbrook, a mare whose strawberry beehive of a mane swayed when she walked, interjected. “This is partly on us, Starswirl. We failed him just as much as he turned on us.”
“He deserved another chance.” Starswirl admitted as he hid his eyes behind the brim of his hat.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to him.” The alicorn reached out a hoof to touch the rim of the bowl made smooth by her power. “Another time, another world maybe I could’ve. Maybe we could’ve saved him…”
“If only.” Somnambula lamented.
“I’m deeply sorry, my boy.” Starswirl gathered up some stones in his magic and stacked them from largest to smallest in front of the bowl, a small cairn in memorial. “You foal…” Just like that he switched from remorseful to angry in the blink of an eye. “I’ve said what I need to.” He declared suddenly. “Do what you wish, I need to speak with Twilight Sparkle some more.”
“We’ll be here if you need us, Starswirl.” Mistmane put a hoof on his shoulder and offered the old mage a smile, both of which he shrugged off with a grunt.
“Now, you said it changed alicorns as well. Or, at least, you alluded to that.” He launched right back into the conversation they were having before being interrupted. “Celestia and Luna, they were…?”
“Yeah.” Twilight and Starswirl walked away from the main group and back over to the rapidly dying fire. “They were infected too. I wasn’t…around…for it, but I know they destroyed Cloudsdale. Then Cadance joined them and destroyed Canterlot.” Twilight sat down, picked up her stick, and began to coax a little more life out of the embers. “Luna is handling it better than Celestia, but that’s not saying much.”
“Mmm.” Starswirl stroked his beard and looked off in thought. “Luna was always a bit more emotionally sturdy than her sister.”
“Well I don’t know about that.” The looks Twilight got in return made realize just who she was talking to. “Right, maybe I should give you all a history lesson…”
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Glad to see you back at it
Update! Yay!
Poor Stygian. Hope the Pillars can help make things better in Equestria.
Hopefully the pillars can help out some
11321937
Good news
Glad to see you're still around
11457783
I just go through periods of not posting. Sometimes I’ll go a few months or a year without writing
Sorry about asking you for the next update take as much time as you need
That was a good chapter goodluck with the next one. I wonder how the Pillars will help fix Equestria.
This was a really swell comeback.
Finally a new chapter of this story
A pleasant surprise. Hope you're doing well.
Are you still alive
11513219
Asking the same. This was the story that got me back to the site after years of absence
yeah
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Not