Archonix's scraps and bits

by archonix

You

It is eyes that endure in memory.

The pain in them, yes, but the coldness. The anguish, but the distance. You hide your feelings so well, behind masks more complete than any a pony might wear to the endless masquerades over which you preside so often these days. The old poet was wrong when he said eyes are the window to the soul, but your eyes... who could forget them, that night?

Moments before you had lain, defeated and broken, in the ruins of the greatest city the world had known up to that day. The home you had made – and it was most definitely you who made it. No one else could claim that. Not even—

You were defeated. Beaten. For the briefest of moments – but a moment is all it takes in fairy tales and tall stories. There can be no recovery from that. Not even a thousand years grants recovery from that. The great leader, the great warrior you appeared to be was an illusion. Cast down against the unyielding stone like the statues of tyrants, their feet picked through by hammers and chisels, their raised limbs and haughty heads shattered away, till nought but rubble lies where once they stood.

Upon thy works thou mighty look, and despair at all they stand for. Grand towering spires, slender frames of mgilt marble reaching toward the sun, the sky, the stars.

The moon.

Each new tower built upon the last, each seeking something you can't even understand. Each trying to restore the heights to which you once rose, the image of godhood that was torn asunder that day, when you were beaten. And thought for only a moment, you were beaten. You, the unbreakable, eternal light, were snuffed out by night's fall. For a moment. A single, terrible moment you fell. For the love of a sister, you fell.

What did it gain to be so broken?

You carry that pain still in your eyes, in your heart, even after so many years that should have dulled that raw edge, but only left it scarred and livid beneath a silken, placid surface. Eyes that watch, eyes that seek solace, eyes that look to the horizon each day. Eyes that weep invisible tears for the life thrown aside.

You know now, you know how different things might have been. As well as you hide it, you know. How might you have lived, had you only seen ought but brute strength and violence, had your love not blinded you to subtlety, to guile, to cunning. The diplomacy for which you were so famed had failed you then.

Does it fail you now?

Does history repeat?

Do you fall again?

Your strength falters; so much is clear from your downcast eyes, your wilting pose. You remember that night too well. You remember that you fell.

For a moment, you fell.

A moment is all it takes.

Author's Note:

An exercise.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Darkly poetic, and a fascinating perspective on Celestia. I'd say this went very well.

[archonix]

6831065 awesome

[archonix]

6834880