The Strands of Time

by Faedelaide

11. A Mistake That Killed the World

Raven gulped as he stared at the charred skulls that hung from the ceiling of Ruin's room. "What are... uh... what are all these?"

"Trophies... Puh... powerful creatures he's slain during his years as drrr... dragonlord."

"What's dragonlord?"

"Our leader. Ruin's cuh... command is our purpose, our duty and our luh... life. That is the way of all dragonlords; we must serve them to our duh... dying breath."

"That seems a bit much. What if Ruin tells you to do something you don't want to?"

"I'm not sure, but you could always ask the hhh... half-gnawed skulls of the poor souls puh... put on digging duty."

Raven shuddered at the thought. "Ok yeah, I see your point."

Blur chuckled and in the process nearly choked on a cloud of smoke. "Alright, enough questions. Come and hhh... help me find this rrr... ruby."

"Ruby?"

"Indeed. Ruin calls it hhhh... his 'righteous scarlet.' I since you two know sss... so much about old magic, I figured yuh... you'd understand Ruin's treasure... as well."

"Uhh Blur, I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't know anything about old magic."

"Well th... that's fine. Either way, it's better in your hooves than rrr... Ruin's claws."

"I guess that's true," Raven gently nudged aside leather bags full of various things that he desperately hoped weren't pony parts. "So what are we looking for exactly?"

"It's hhh... hard to miss. It's a bright red-" Blur suddenly stopped in his tracks. Scrolls fell from their shelves as his claw froze. His eyes didn't move, his chest was still. Raven was just beginning to wonder if he had died when a faint sound echoed into the chamber.

It was a faint, almost imperceptible humming, but it was a noise familiar enough to Raven that he discerned it immediately. It seemed simple enough, Branch was excited about something he found. Knowing Branch, almost anything in these caves could've fit that bill, so why was Blur acting so odd?

The only response Raven was given was a plume of smoke in his face before he was suddenly snatched up into Blur's claws. The pearly white lizard leapt out of Ruin's chamber, landing on one of the lower platforms. The lower sections on the main chamber, unlike the higher rooms, seemed freshly dug, and still had the occasional pile of dirt strewn here or there. The walls were roughly scratched, and many of the chambers were barely a couple meters deep. However, some of the tunnels dug deep into the dirt, illuminated by many glowing orbs.

Blur snapped towards one of the tunnels, his face pulled taut with fear. Raven stared at him as he slithered down one of the tunnels with an energy previously unseen. Raven stifled a chuckle. Where was this energy when Blur was chasing Branch and him earlier? Raven didn't expect to see something like Blur get this worried over anything. Was it Ruin's righteous scarlet? No, that couldn't be it, the only thing Raven could think of that would make Blur this worried was...

Oh no.

Blur suddenly skidded to a stop. Branch nearly threw out his neck from the whiplash. It took a second for the pony to recover, and he was thankful that Blur was having another freezing spell.

Raven waved his hooves at the lizard, aware of its ineffectiveness. "Blur, what's going on?"

Blur took several deep breaths, sniffing the air. "Quiet. Swarmlings."

"Really? Where's Branch? What do we-"

"Quiet!" Blur hissed. slowly, he lowered his jaw to the ground. Splaying his claws out and exhaling slowly, Blur once again fell motionless.

Raven tiptoed forward. The tunnel Blur had dragged him down made a sharp turn to the left. As Raven got closer to the wall's edge, he realized that the dirt had slowly become a slick, black substance. He ran a hoof across it and gasped at how cool it was. It wasn't chill like the dirt around him, it was devoid of warmth altogether, as if it were a thawing corpse.

Down the tunnel, the substance continued to flourish until it consumed everything around it. The only part of the tunnel that wasn't covered in this ooze was the ceiling and the fleshy lights that hung from it. The ooze collected in puddles on the ground, where it shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow.

Raven looked further down the tunnel. Hidden in the shadow that lingered between the glow of the bulbs, an insecticorn buzzed its wings.

"Branch? Is that you, love?" Raven quickened his pace. He walked, then ran to his partner. Behind him, he could hear Blur whisper something, but Raven was already too far away. Besides, it was only Branch. What did Blur have to worry about.

Raven quickly approached the bug pony, but before he could catch a full glimpse of it, a second head poked out from behind it. Raven stumbled to a stop as two bright blue eyes stared back at him.

Branch stepped around the insecticorn, which turned its head to face Raven. "Ah, Raven! Did you guys find what you were looking for?"

"N-no... who uh... who's this?"

"Oh, right," Branch facehooved. "Raven, meet Buzz. Buzz, this is Raven, my heart."

The insecticorn's wings flapped wildly. Surprisingly, the buzzing that it made was louder and much clearer than Branch's, as if it had practiced buzzing its wings for years.

Branch smiled once the insecticorn finished its song. "He says he's glad to meet you. He says he's never seen a pony in such a dangerous place before."

Raven blinked, taken aback. "You can... understand it-uh... him?"

The insecticorn buzzed, and Branch was quick to translate. "Yeah. Buzz says it's a natural instinct in all insecticorns. I guess I just never knew."

"Huh. Well maybe this guy can help us out," Raven looked towards Buzz. "We're trying to make it to the sea of bones, but we've been getting a bit sidetracked on the way here," Raven stared at Branch, who smiled abashedly. "Is there a way we might be able to get out?"

The insecticorn buzzed its wings again, and again Branch translated. "He knows a way, and he understands your pain. The annual firewinder migration is happening after all. It would take an army just to get rid of their evil... leader... Ruin... much less all of them."

Awkward silence reigned for one painful moment. Then, Buzz flapped his wings again.

Branch's face scrunched slightly, but he translated for Raven's sake. "Buzz wants to know how we know about the sea of bones."

Raven gulped. Could Blur hear all of this? "Uhh... I don't think it's all that important."

A small crack appeared on the insecticorn's head. A roiling orange substance throbbed just underneath the surface of the insecticorn's skin. Again it's wings buzzed, and Branch's brow creased in worry.

"Buzz, what's got you so worked up?" Branch glanced at Raven. Beads of sweat rolled down the pony's brow, and in a moment, Branch came to the same horrifying realization that Raven had come to moments before. "Do you think someone else is here?

The insecticorn buzzed again, but the crack in its head shrank away until its head returned to normal. Raven looked at Branch. He looked at the insecticorn, then back at Raven and translated. "Buzz says he thinks there might be a firewinder here."

Raven cleared his throat anxiously. "But I thought they were all on migration. What would a firewinder be doing here?"

The insecticorn sneered at them. Until this point, Raven had assumed that the insecticorn's eyes were as dark as its skin, but as the light of the tunnel reflected off of the creases of its face, Raven realized that the insecticorn didn't have eyes at all. Instead, it bore a smooth patch of chitin that ran from the crack on its forehead down to the top of its snout. Again, the crack glowed a bright, magmatic orange.

Suddenly, the insecticorn pushed Raven aside and stared down towards the end of the tunnel that led back to the main hall, or more immediately, back to Blur.

It walked forward a few feet, stared in disgust at some of the low hanging bulbs. Then, after one agonizingly tense moment, a subtle cracking travelled through the wide dirt passage. The cracking, like the crunch of dried bark or the breaking of small bones, reverberated back to the couple. Raven readied himself to run.

There was a haunting crack, and two jet black horns sprouted from the top of the insecticorn's head. With a startlingly loud fwoomph, a wide, winglike membrane, colored in vibrant orange and decorated with veins of blinding yellow loosed itself from between the insecticorn's horns. It thrummed with life, shaking and shivering, scanning for something. Neither Branch nor Raven knew what it was scanning for.

The insecticorn turned its head right, then straight down the tunnel, and then right. It only needed to turn ever so slightly before the insect's head stopped and focused on a point somewhere beyond what Branch and Raven could see. Raven's heartbeat quickened. The insecticorn seemed to almost be looking through the wall. And if it was, Raven was sure that the insecticorn was looking at Blur.

Its wings buzzed again. Branch gasped, and Raven turned to look at him. Branch's face was as pale as Raven had ever seen it when his partner spoke in a shaky whisper. "H-he... he s-senses magic. We've gotta warn Blur."

"How?"

"I don't know! Think of something, anything!"

"Ok, ok!" Raven dashed forward to catch up with the insecticorn. He continued on, then turned back around to face the creature. The bug walked slowly, but its eyeless face brimmed with purpose. As Raven stood against it, the membrane on its head thrummed again, and the insect's face wrinkled in anger.

"Buzz, let's just slow down and talk things out."

The insecticorn's wings buzzed again. Blur snuck quietly behind it. Raven gave him a passing Glance, and the expression on his partner's face easily described the danger he was in.

The insecticorn spoke in a voice that bubbled and sputtered. "Move... Now..."

"I don't think I can do tha-" In a blur of motion and color, the insecticorn swung its horns at Raven. He could feel himself being lifted off the ground and crashing into the slimy dirt wall. His eyes swirled with sharp colors, and a consistent, high pitched ringing filled his ears. After a moment, Raven staggered, forcing himself upright. As his vision cleared, he could see Branch and Buzz circling each other. Wings spread to their sides, both of them looked like predators ready to pounce. They snarled and growled, their faces contorted into expressions of animalistic hate. It almost shocked Raven to see Branch bearing such an expression. Then, in an instant, they were upon each other. Their wings buzzed, their hooves flailed wildly, and their horns scratched against tough, chitinous hide until Buzz finally gained the upper hand.

The wild insecticorn thrust its hind hooves into Branch's chest, separating the two insects from each other and catapulting Branch into the ceiling. Branch hit the dirt with a loud slam, knocking down heaps of soil and sand. Several bulbs popped free of their restraints and fell onto the dirt floor, bursting open and spilling small pools of orange sludge onto the ground. It was only a second later when Branch crashed down, the force of his fall causing several more bulbs to fall to the ground, as well as making the contents of his bag spill out all over.

Raven bolted over to his partner. Branch was limp, and his eyes refused to open more than a crack. Raven's eyes scanned the ground as he tried to help Branch upright, assessing what had been dropped in the chaos. Most of it was ashfruit or skullberries, but right near where Branch's head had been, a small box laid wide open, and just a couple feet away was the bright purple crystal. Raven quickly scooped the crystal in his hooves and stuffed it into his bag, but it was already far too late. He looked up, and Buzz stared back at him. Its face full of shock, its membranous horns began to hum louder and louder.

Not wasting any more time, Raven heaved Branch onto his back and bolted down the tunnel towards Blur. As he ran, Raven could hear a raspy whistle through the buzz of the insecticorn's horns. He looked back for just one second, and had to restrain a yell.

The insecticorn's head was split in two. from in between two wide, black plates, bright yellow flesh oozed and pulsed, and bright, dandelion mandibles swung and grasped at the air. From the center of the creature's head, a hole that could have only been its mouth was lined with dozens of tiny, spiked digits and filled with countless rows of pointed, scissor-like teeth.

Raven continued running. He never wanted to look back. Turning onto the tunnel, he ran straight into blur. Wordlessly, the lizard grabbed the two of them and the trio retreated back towards the main hall. As they ran, the whistling scream of the swarmling faded away, though a ringing persisted in Raven's' ears. None of them noticed that Buzz didn't follow them. None of them noticed as the walls, slick with swarmling wax, began to bend and break, collapsing from the force of hundreds of hungry hooves.