Waning Light

by Whitehooves

Prologue

Waning Light

by MrE Whitehooves

Prologue

Time.

Time is a strange concept.

It ebbs and flows like the tides of an ocean. It changes simply by how it is viewed and is contained only in the eyes of fools — those that try to measure their existence by their achievements within it.

It sculpts a great many things and destroys them just as quickly. Nothing has convinced Time to work with them for the better, and nothing has developed either a successful defense or weapon against Time.

However, every culture respects Time. They understand that it is something that brings power, brings pride. Most of all, it brings knowledge. No matter which civilization within Time you visit, there has always been a thirst for knowledge. It has been a way to understand the known world around them and to explore and explain that which is not bound by that known universe. Despite their thirst for knowledge, many do not have the patience to savour it; the Zebra believe that patience is a virtue that will grant them light when it is needed, whereas Griffons would much rather seize the time granted to them to hunt it with fervor.

In reality, Time is not as old as many believe. Having risen from the chaos that played out of nothing, it was the first driving force that harmonised the universe and brought about the forces that shaped the world, giving birth to the great and diverse forms that inhabit the surface of it.

The great spirits of Earth, Water, Fire and Air have maintained balance between each other and the life that they bore. Equal in power, none could claim to be the dominating force over their siblings, and so they are content to live with each other.

While Time toiled away, the great spirits grew fonder of their children of the world, some becoming stoic guardians for all life, shouldering the burden of providing a platform for it all to grow upon, while others played with those who had become one with their spirit, enjoying the closeness that they shared.

All the elemental spirits were relied upon by all forms of life, some more heavily than others, but Fire played a key role in the birth of life. The spark of energy that Fire relied upon to keep alive, he shared with all living things. This bred a problem of its own, as, without Fire, the creatures could not have the warmth to survive. However, Fire was a fickle being himself. He was greedy and perpetually hungry, devouring everything that he could. So, in an attempt to control him, they starved him, feeding him just enough to sustain him.

This struggle played out for a great time, and, while life evolved and developed new methods to wage their fight against the fire that ate them, Fire became complacent. He saw the development of these fickle beings but saw no need to defend himself beyond what he had, and that was his downfall.

Opening my eyes to the blackened corner of oblivion that was my own, a shiver shows me what I ultimately miss. The everyday mundane that we take for granted once removed, for this lone corner of existence is one not frequented by The Consumer too often. His fickle dance above the candle that glows within these walls is for what?

… To provide a companion to my loneliness?

… To see if I’m still waiting, waiting forever for his return?

… To try and understand such an alien concept as waiting?

… To humour me?

… Compassion?

Whether I will ever truly understand the brief glimpses he grants me, I will always be waiting for him. Sometimes waiting is all we can do. It’s not our choice. The tale of Nightmare Moon, her Millenium of Solitude. Shackled here, I wonder what it would have been like for her so close to her home. Did she thrash for centuries? Frustrated at how cruel home taunted her yet still unable to return. Did she ever regret, repenting for all she bore upon her fledgling empire sat beside her sister? Did she share a companion, like I am graced with? For, no matter what happened during her solitude, she waited. I can assure you, it was never her choice to begin with.

Frustrating, at its greatest, is wasting your potential. To hide from yourself is a sin in itself, but in situations that are outside of control, sometimes wasting it has to be tolerated with bared teeth. However, what if your potential was enough to tip the balance in your favour and damage, irreparably, an existence that relied on you? There are those that have lived just to prevent this, binding those that rival them before the scales tip and slide away from them.

Grinding my teeth, sparks glitter across my face as vindictive thoughts echo the halls of my mind. Every lifeform yearning for wisdom and power, yet what do these beings pertain to under Time’s watchful marching?! I calm myself before the runes sparking around me can utter another warning. I breathe a deep sigh and lean against the wall behind me.

The brief return of my companion grants me a small smile. With the swift motion of my hooves I draw him in closer to me. Sliding over the cold, weathered stone, the flame awkwardly glides, unsure of what to make of the surface; for what use is something that cannot provide it with life to such a fickle creature. If it cannot burn, what is the point of its existence? I gaze into the flame as it wildly flails about the confines of the candle. With morbid curiosity I raise my hoof and wave it through the animal. Almost fearful to start with, the crimson body retreats as I move into it, but the more it tastes me the more it lovingly slides around my body. Waving my hoof again, I move it back. This time the flame bites me, jerking from its jaws my substance and turning my hoof over, watching the embers sizzle within my coat where it burnt.

Fire is not one to step back, it never has been. A descendant of the chaos of time, it was once an intimate friend of the Draconequus race. Their lord Discord envied his carefree attitude, and with it saw its potential for change. This did not sit well with the Judges that regulated life. For his kind was one that was difficult to control within Time. The elements that followed Discord were melded by force to the will of each of the Judges and bound him in stone; for their combined power was not enough to destroy him, instead only to lock him away for millennia.

So what if Fire was made to wait? Like Nightmare Moon and Discord, what if it was trapped? Something so alien to the beast, would it even comprehend waiting? That, personally, is something that intrigues me. A strange thing, perhaps. For fire is a phenomenon, is it not? And therefore something that cannot be imprisoned.

Then again, so is Chaos.

I suppose good things come to those that wait, but what existence do we attain in doing so? Imagine, for example, my little friend that lives so fitfully, dancing with what little fuel has bled in his time away. What would he be if he was patient, held back, preserving his fuel? He could last much longer, but what life would that be? It would be a feeble thing, barely alive. Which is why I loathe that saying, for those that utter it imply that actions yield you nothing. We, like the flame, must dance, consume, change, but we judge the flame with eyes of placidity? Is its wild, rash hunger such a terror?

I personally do not see it so, but do I matter? If a judge loathes fire, in hatred they condemn the flame. For in reality, no race loves fire. They endure it for what it is, using it for light and warmth, feebly attempting to control it, making a slave of something that in its nature should be free, rather than fear it and rightly so. They lived around the flame instead of with it. Confining it, limiting it, only feeding its immeasurable hunger to barely sustain it.

In doing so, they inadvertently fueled my interest, by forcing it to wait. Fearing, in their eyes, the destruction they see it bestows; rather than it dancing with the ancient essence that is within substance. Fire does what is within its nature, it lives. If they tried to understand him rather than enslave him, they might have seen.

Yet, how foolish that wish. Fire could not wish to be understood by judgement. There are only two places where it can flourish. One only exacerbates the belief of its evil, using Fire to torture and punish those who are deemed unfit and dangerous, deep in the pits of Tartarus.

The other... Glancing at my hooves, I pull them close. After an infinity of nothing I lower them to my sides, forgetting that other place.

As if hearing my cries, the candle springs to life again. Raising an eyebrow, I inspect that dancing visitor. He’s early. Could he not wait to hear me? Leaning in, I inspect the flame.

‘What is it? Why did you come now?’

The flame dances.

‘Is something wrong? Did something change?’

The flame sparks.

‘Is... is it time?’

The flame smiles, then dies.

Rolling onto my back I exhale with something I thought I had forgotten how to do. It was something that I had not done in a long, long time. A sound that confuses, upsets the runes surrounding me. Their powerful enchantments ripple at something so alien they don’t know how to react.

I laugh.

For as I have waited, accompanied by my thoughts and the flame, I have changed. Every time that flame greets me, it is greeted by a new face; and in turn, the flame changes. It grows, fractionally brighter, fractionally livelier. Each growth restores it to what it had once been, for fire had once been truly great.

Allow me to take you back, if you will; to before Nightmare Moon fought for the sky, to a time before the entrapment of Discord, and a time of mystery.

To a time when fire was fighting at its full strength.

Air was loved by all. She allowed pegasi to fly with her, and danced with them in constant joviality. Water was similar. Though much quieter, she bound her efforts to supporting her children, and in return they asked no more of her.

Earth was a much more majestic creature, for he not only bore upon him the burden of all those who had made him their home, but also his siblings and all those that lived with them. For, although he was often taken for granted and sometimes forgotten, he was praised and celebrated for the life he granted.

The love for the elements was what gave them the strength to continue enjoying themselves. Yet for Fire, the fear and worry he instilled in life was never loved and never knew of love, so lived through the feeble morsels that were offered to him with greedy eyes, leaving the moment there was nothing left for him.

However, on one fateful day when smoldering in a fire pit, a young mare stumbled into the field he resided in. Expecting a usual reaction, Fire turned his eyes from her; for, though he lived in the moment, even he got tired of their hatred. Rather than the young female scurrying away, she came to sit by him; her eyes alight with an interest he had never seen in a mortal before.

As Time strode on, the two grew closer. Unlike the rest of the world that only fed him a fuel finite in its resources, offering him only enough to sustain him, the mare grew to love him and he fed on the infinite warmth she radiated. The closer they got, the further he withdrew from the outside world.

The days and weeks passed by, and with each passing the world grew a little bit colder. No matter how much dry wood and kindling piled high, no spark of hoof, rock or horn could bring about a blaze to warm a mortal soul. This was a problem for the balance as, despite how much Fire was loathed, there was a place within it for the Great Consumer. In one of the few rare moments, the placid equines that balanced the universe stepped off their thrones and marched across the world in search of the Element.

For a fortnight they searched, with no success. Until one night in a dusty inn the pair had entered to wet their palettes, they overheard a young lumberjack breathe streams of envy between his two friends of a stone cabin in the woods where he had seen the blazing soul of the Element dancing with a lone mare.

So out they marched, seeking to redeem the balance they always managed.

After weighing up the options, they took the simplest path to realign, eliminating the threat that had destabilised all. The judges assumed that Fire would return, no longer being bound to one individual. A foolish and rash decision it would turn out.

For rather than calmly resume his meager existence, the beast exploded in a rage fueled by the vacuum of his loss. In his dance with the mortal, he had learned of what he had never known or experienced, he had learned to love...

...And those who waited had take that away from him.

They had created the very monster they had always feared.

The fires that ravaged the land scorched everything in the Element's path. Blazing forest fires tore through swathes of the continent, burnt down villages, towns, even whole cities; no stone left untouched in his search for the Royal pair.

His brothers and sisters were the first to react. Air knew she would do nothing but make things worse if she confronted her brother alone, but together with Water, they drew together a blizzard that would have frozen entire empires. To no avail though, for under a single glare from the raging sibling, they were blown away.

Following closely behind, his brother Earth marched to his brother, swayed by his great emotional turmoil, for rock and soil remained untouched by Fire’s touch. Yet even Earth could not withstand the ferocity of the Great Consumer’s blaze, retreating for fear of the loss of the life he carried with him.

Eventually Fire threatened to bring about the extinction of the planet. Only when they saw Fire's boiling blood did the sisters finally confront him.

As soon as they appeared to him did the ball of pure energy unleash himself fully. Leaping at their throats, Fire drew with him the energy from the entire cosmos. Stars dimmed as he allowed fully his rage, and grief, and anger to unleash themselves upon the Royal sisters....

... And they reacted back.

Severing the Elemental in two, they locking in a form similar to themselves his learned emotions, binding the love and pain and jealousy into pony form. His spirit incarnate, the true energy that he was, they bound. Formed from the damaged spirit of Earth, they drew all that was dead from him and locked Fire within it, casting it from the surface of the planet beyond the reach of all but themselves. They would use his spirit to warm the planet from afar.

Finally to save the other elements, they did the same. All had been damaged by Fire’s rampage and wouldn’t survive if left in the condition they were in. So taking from each of them the emotions, again they bound them in pony form, eternal in rebirth. Before binding their spirits, each was asked how they would like to live; Air asked to be reborn as Athas on the wings of eagles and soar with her children again, Water wished to once again provide life for her family as Vurgen with flippers of a chattering porpoise. Earth took his time to decide how he wished to be reincarnated, finally wishing to take the name of an ancient race that had viewed him with great respect and honour as Gaia the Great Bearing Turtle.

With the spirits released once more upon the land, and Fire out of harms way, Celestia and Luna returned to their perches on high. Presiding over the great equilibrium they maintained.

Spitting into the air, it would seem my companion does not much like the ending. The candle no longer crackling but booming my name, Thomil, over and over. For see Celestia, eternity is a great length of time, and my lofty prison you trapped me in has given me a rare opportunity to think.

“I like seeing the world turn and everything that you do I watch with great interest. For you were never evil, just trying to maintain your precious balance. Therefore, by leaving two lovers together, you allow them to draw power from each other, growing forever more powerful.” I bellow at these four walls, grinning as I see cracks web across the obsidian cage. “So I send you this warning...”

Laughing maniacally to myself as the thoughts ran erratically through my mind.

“...I’m coming”

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Authors Notes:

I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have. This is my first time writing so it’s been a steep learning curve. I’ve had a few rewrites but I think its come out alright in the end.

A big thanks to all my prereaders(/inadvertent editors) who put up with my incessant nagging to tell me what they thought and gave me the courage to write this.

Feefers Lovecraft

JSummerfield93

Nanmin/ |Radix|

SlightlyBossy... I mean SlightlyEccentric [My bad Ruth ;)]

Rik/Gaiascope gets a massive mention as this prologue is entirely inspired by him and has affected the plot line in a big way, so thank you for allowing me to use some of your genius as inspiration.

A massive shout out to Tom Ashford who guided me out of the maze that was my initial idea. L9obl, who gave me a few... stern words to make the coming storm less... prattling. And finally to my most dearest editor... Deebeedoll, who braved the tenses sea and put a gun to my head if I ever got it wrong.

Finally a big thanks to anyone that reads this, it’s you that make this all worthwhile and any response from you that can help improve this even more is always appreciated.

Deep regards and forever grateful,

White Out

PS. I am adding a disclaimer here while I am still working on further chapters, though it may not seem like the story relates greatly to the synopsis... it shall develop. Please just bare with me.

Comments

[nobodyreallyimportant]

I liked it, once i took a step back and thought about it. Props to you, sir.

[Whitehooves]

1669692

Over the moon you enjoyed it.... and thank you SO SO much for the first like

[hawthornbunny]

Very nice, especially for such an ambitious first chapter! It had a good epic feel to it. What I found most interesting was your portrayal of Celestia and Luna as true goddesses; I always tend to focus on their personal side rather than their theological side, so it was interesting to see this take on it. :)

[Fluttersyke]

This was excellent, my good sir. You truly have some very interesting ideas and have expressed them in a fantastic fashion!

[Whitehooves]

1762881
Initially the prologue was much shorter and a lot different but a friend of mine (Gaia) wrote a oneshot which it is based off of, but I'm glad you liked it as I want to try and run with the idea a bit through the story.

1771944
You really don't know how happy I am to hear you say that. It really means a lot. Though it may be slow I'll try and get the story out as fast as possible.

[Fluttersyke]

1776366

You're welcome! You've definitely got a solid prologue here! And don't worry, take you time in writing! As long as you're enjoying it, you're doing it right!