The Dark Below

by WindigogoGadget

Lonely Winds [End]

Crumbling.

Falling.

It was all going away.

It's ponies, retreated and fleeing to the depths of the world, again, and to the farthest rims of reality. The other shadows, their minds became clouded, warped. Twisted.

His lonely, wayward subjects had needed the presence of a king. A steady hand of love and peace to guide the flock, a comforting warmth that for all of its efforts and spite and moxie, it could not provide.

For all intents and purposes, it's world was ending, and once again so was His.

Massive was its bloated presence, filled with the hatred it had stolen over the ages from the ponies, the changelings, even the other shades. A tyrant. It was a titanic leviathan of emotions, laying at the very pit of it's own despair and crumbling aspirations. A massive, corpse of guilt and gluttony- crushing itself under its own weight.

Silence.

Introspection.

Everything, had reached the end, everywhere, all over again. It's heart, rotten and petrified and shriveled, beat slowly. Enslaved to a broken machine.

It's fire, its unyielding flame, was dimming, leaving only the cooling coals and embers as wind sung mournfully. Here, at the very end of everything, it had come to a sickening and begrudging realization.

Envy, as it began to realize, was not a being of pure hate. Nor was it a being of pure guilt. No, somehow, as it lay down beneath an infinite expanse of nothing, dying just like the others, it realized that somehow, sometime, it's blood held love. By hating something more than another, it had developed its own system of love, in some twisted sense. Clearly, if it had no moral conscience, no empathy, and no feelings, then it wouldn't have been laying under its immense weight. If it had no feelings beyond hatred, then it wouldn't have been here. It would have simply been blinded by itself, and no doubt slaughtered everyone and everything. But it didn't. It hated life, found it disgusting and stupid and confusing, but it did not despise it nearly as much as it despised death, murder, and thieves. It mattered not if what was stolen was life or material. It was all loathsome.

It disliked life. But it realized that it did not hate the act of living. It's greed for life, was merely a perversion of its love and adoration for the ones above it. Yes, Envy did lord over all. But it found that it truly did love life.

It saw the crumbling ruins of its- no, not its cities, but the cities of its prized friends. And it felt pride. It had failed, extraordinarily and spectacularly, failed to bring salvation to a cold, dark world. But it had succeeded in giving them a last look of life. It decided then, that no matter what happened, it would never have changed a thing. It would never have changed fate.

For the first time, it felt itself feel cold. Not the cold winds, but itself, was cold. It was so cold. The warmth of joy was not enough, and the fires of hate died down. For all of its greed, it never once collected warm, and for all of its hunger, could never be insatiable.

It began to inch closer to itself, slowly, steadily, it moved on fresh and crooked limbs in an infinite crumbling expanse. Horizons, bled over the shattered night skies, the suns dipping beneath a great inky barrier. Land, did not exist this far down, and the earth that did lay shattered and broken.

Envy began to think. Spiraling.

Our father; we pray there be a heaven.

Hallowed, made your name.

You made me to lie in green pastures, and lead us to clearer waters, to restore our soul.

Yes, though I walk now, from the shadows in the valley of death. I have feared no evil.

Your bones. And your staff. Comfort me.

I have walked the path of righteousness in your names sake, as you prepared a table before the presence of our enemies, our cups running over. Surely expecting goodness and mercy to follow you, for all your days.

Bless me now with your fierce tears.

Envy felt as it reached the end of itself, as it began to crawl over its own mass, hideous to itself no more. The great lizard moved to comfort itself. As it gripped firmly its own heart, and could sense not another living being as it descended, it realized that it was not alone. It was. It felt, warm.

Inevitable, all-powerful, all encompassing was its leviathan form, and it fell in love with itself, as it's own embrace crushed itself to death.

Author's Note:

Now dream a good dream.