Chapter 1
You.
You fool.
You utter, utter fool. Was it not sufficient to see that look of disgust in her eyes? To hear the revulsion in her voice? No, you pushed her, you tried her patience with your simpering and pleading cries to love and be loved, and when your insipid pleading garnered you naught you turned to this? And now?
Now you are “here.” It doesn’t matter, what “here” means. Not anymore. No, no, “here” it is black, cloying darkness in your mind—a static, staid existence without any real consciousness. Fitting, you thought—if you could think with the weight of worlds crushing you. Yes, this is your fate, for your crimes.
Do you remember when you first came to her? Can you remember? A memory, a tiny seed of light in the oppressive shadows? Yes, you can, you can. You remember when you stepped into this world, into a world of dappled sunlight over emerald fields of grass swaying slightly in the breeze, the smell of wild flowers nigh overwhelming to a man born and bred in the city.
Yes, when you were a man, one sad lonely soul among the teeming billions in what had been your world, now here in the dream of the country, the perfect image of what your world should have been but never was but in Eden—how could you not be enthralled? Do you remember how long you lingered in those peaceful fields? Too long, perhaps. Long enough for her to find you.
She came down in a blinding light, and you cried out and covered your eyes, kneeling in unthinking supplication to what would become your goddess. You looked up, squinting into the light as she lightly touched down, regal. Her coat was the purest white, her mane an ethereal rainbow undulating in a breeze no one could feel. Upon her flank was a sun in gold—fitting, you thought, for one so radiant. A horn jutted from her brow and wings flared as she set down upon the field. She looked down on you with curiosity. And you—you fool, you utter, utter fool!— looked up at her with love.
She seemed so very interested as you spoke to her of who you were. You couldn’t restrain yourself, telling embellished tales of great bravado and impressive feats to woo this majestic mare. When you finally came to a pause, worn out from daring feats of the imagination, she invited you to her castle. How your heart leapt for joy! How she graciously allowed you to ride upon her back, flanked by a smaller, dark blue mare you had not even noticed next to this radiant beauty.
You flew through clear blue skies, dotted with clouds that seemed so much more real than those on your world. The sun was so bright, and it seemed so much closer. You basked in it’s warmth, in the all encompassing embrace of what you knew was your love’s true heart.
When you arrived at the castle, the inhabitants were small equines, countless ponies staring after you with awe and curiosity. They had such large eyes, and it seemed as if their whole souls were laid bare before you. As you dismounted, they seemed to recover from their shock and came forward to greet their princesses—Celestia and Luna, as you learned—and inquired after you. Yes, in those first days they were aquiver with eagerness to learn of you and your world. They doted upon you—a lavish castle apartment in the main tower, food and drink at your beck and call, and always the young Luna was there to hear of your tales of the real world and your extraordinary exploits.
And your princess—your sun—blessed you with her presence. She seemed to love nothing more than to while away the hours in idle conversation with you, speaking of nothing of any true importance. She told you of her dreams, of finding a worthy pony to join her. You worked slowly in those days, building your courage and testing the waters of your heart. One day, in the courtyard, you finally confessed your love. You spoke of undying commitment, of the depths of your devotion and your passion.
And she sat there, and she smiled that smile you loved so very much, and she said, softly, lovingly, “Prove it.”
She went on to speak of how you would, in time, come to die. She was, after all, immortal. Why should she love and subject herself to such torment? To the sadness of watching a lover die? You cried out then, and she silenced you with a touch to your lips that stil—even now, in the depths of your eternal, dreamless sleep—burns like fire. She spoke of ancient spells that would call upon the love in your heart, of the six Elements of Harmony which could turn even a merely mortal man into something immortal and perfect—like her.
She told you of how much knowledge was lost since those old days. “It would be a risk, my love,” she said, and your heart thrilled too much at her touching concern. After all, she required this of you to prove your love, and in return for some small risk and pain you would be as her. Then you could be together, to love and be loved, forever.
And you.
You fool.
You utter, utter fool.
You accepted without hesitation.
She fetched her sister and the three of you went to the tallest tower of the castle. There, amidst iconography of the six Elements the sisters held aloft the shining gems and invoked their great powers. Light blazed forth and struck you, and you could feel the power changing you, twisting you. Your bones shattered and twisted, reforming as they were never meant to be. A coat of fine vermillion hair sprouted all over your body, and a horn thrust forth from your skull, rising the wildly growing, black mane. Wings burst wetly from your back to wave weakly in your pain. You screamed, then. You screamed for a very long time.
It seemed, then, in a moment of weakness, of pain and agony, that you denied your love. Deep in your heart of hearts, you knew that you would have given up your dear, sweet Celestia if only the pain would just end. And in that moment, in that single sliver of despair and denial, it all went wrong. Your bones broke and healed in stunted contortions. Your back humped and muscle tore and knitted and fell apart under the magical strain. When the spell ended, what the princesses saw was not an alicorn, sleek in form and beautiful—there was nothing more than a twisted abomination, a mockery of everything they were.
Luna retched at the sight of your form, and held hooves over her ears to block out your pained moans. Celestia—your dear, sweet Celestia—had no emotion on her face as she looked down upon you. You held forth a misshapen hoof in supplication, begging for succor.
“Another failure,” she said calmly as she turned away. You think you might have screamed, though all that you could produce was a whimper.
The guards took you away to your room, to suffer silently amongst the opulence. Gone were the eager listeners, waiting to hear another tale of impossible heroisms. Gone were the noontime walks through the gardens of the castle with your personal sun. There was nothing but silence.
And you stewed in it—oh how you dredged through your mind in the dim light of curtained windows. Your love! Your love! How could you live without your sun? You flailed impotently in the dark, gibbering madly. You’re not sure when your mind broke. Maybe it was the pain, or the denial of your love. It was in the darkness of that room as you laid crippled and the years slowly edge past. You no longer remember something so unimportant. But it was there, there in the shadows that you knew what you had to do.
Your horn blazed in that darkness. It was as flawed as the rest of you, but it sufficed for your purpose. The windows to the tower had been barred long, long ago, but they turned red and ran like molten wax before your magic. You pulled yourself to the window, and fell from that tall, tall tower. You levitated fitfully, sudden starts and stops a hallmark of your slow descent outside the tower. There was but one goal in your mind.
You remember well Luna telling you of the foundation of the Elements. Under the castle, there beneath even the foundations was a tree. The Tree of Harmony, noble and proud. From this tree had the sisters been granted the Elements, and with them defeated the dreaded Discord. From this tree were the Elements formed and passed on their power.
From this tree, you knew, you could form a new Element.
You were laughing, then, as you hovered before it. Or were you crying? You remember heaving sobs wracking your damaged form—or were they great guffaws of insane laughter? Can you even remember?
Do you even want to?
Yes, yes, anything is better than the cloying dark. Even the memories of your greatest failure is preferable to that nonexistence.
You were before the great tree, and for a moment, your hoof was stayed. The tree radiated a kind power, noble in purpose, and it seemed, for a moment, that it could soothe even your ravaged and broken mind.
But then, “Another failure,” echoes in your frail mind. Your dear, sweet Celestia.
With an unarticulated cry your horn shone brightly and ripped wood from the trunk of the tree. The very air seemed to cry out at your crime, but you were beyond hearing, beyond caring. You held it aloft and your magic twisted it as much as you had been torn and remade. You poured all your love into it, all of your hate. You poured your heart into your abhorrent child, and it took the shape of your obsessions.
You admired your creation, looking deeply into the depth of that malformed mockery of a heart. The glistening surface caught your damned reflection. You don’t remember that look on your face. You don’t remember your mouth twisting into a rictus, into that death’s head grin. You don’t remember the crazed look in your eyes, your large pony eyes that had been big enough to see into the soul. You don’t remember seeing into that soul and seeing what thing you had become.
You don’t remember. You don’t remember. You don’t remember.
You pulled yourself out of that pit to find an army arrayed against you. The unicorn guards stood in serried ranks, spears held magically aloft. Glints of golden light revealed a seemingly endless swarm of pegasi churning overhead. And there, at the forefront of this army, stood the Sun. Your dear, sweet Celestia.
You made your slow progress across that quiet field, your crippled wings fluttering weakly as you hovered before her. You bowed low in supplication once more, as you had so very, very long ago, when you were yet a man. You presented your heart to her, held up in two hooves as one would offer a sacrifice to some uncaring and hostile god. You spoke again of your undying love, of your unending devotion. Surely with the power of this new Element, of this Element of Love, she could make you perfect in form and heal your ailing mind. She took the heart from you, and stared into it’s depths.
When she crushed the heart beneath a hoof you stared and stared and screamed and screamed until your throat ran with blood. Your horn blazed. Ponies died, melting away into red mush.
Your dear, sweet Celestia, your most beloved, your heart of hearts. Your great enemy, your gaoler, the one who had ruined you—you who had done nothing but love her.
And you still love her, don’t you? Even now, even now, here, in the edge of death, in the utter nothingness, you still love her. You still burn with that passion from all those many years ago when you walked those green fields and she seemed like an angel descending from heaven. You love her and you hate her and you change from one to the other so frequently that it all blurs together.
You fool.
You utter fool.
You fought each other before the castle. The grand army assembled before you had melted away, and you stamped and moved on blood slicked grass, trampling and churning it into a morass of thick, stinking mud. The princess was fast and strong, perfect in form and style, but you were unstoppable. Love and hate had mixed themselves in your gut, and all that was left was a need, an obsession that would not be quenched until you had your lips locked to hers and a knife buried in her heart. And you looked into those magenta eyes, those huge eyes, and you saw into her soul.
You saw the fear.
And she swung hooves wildly, erratic and fearful, panting as she tried to cave in your skull with a hoof or turn you to so much purified ash with a blast from her horn. But you weathered it. You took the deadly blows to your malformed skull without crying out, and blasts that burned away your coat and set skin to blacken from heat did nothing but make you laugh. And finally, you overwhelmed her, and knocked her to the bloody earth.
You were saying something, but none know what. Your throat was damaged to the point of being incapable of speech. But ere you could strike with upraised hoof and dash her brains into the mud, ere you could tear out her throat with you teeth, the dark princess came up behind you and whispered in your ears.
Young Luna. She had listened to your tales long ago, when you were still a man. She had always been there for you, in your dreams when your loneliness grew too strong and you longed for your old life and old home. She was here for you now, and as she whispered sweet lullabies into your ear, your mad grin finally broke, and true tears ran down your ruined face. She lay you down in the earth and sang to you as you slept, and fell asleep forever.
They moved you, you know. To the tower. To your old room, that lavish apartment where you had known such happiness and sorrow. Luna would come in and find you forever sleeping there and whisper to you. She would tell you of her great deeds, of her heroics in protecting her ponies from great threats.
She told you that she knew why you had turned on her sister, why she too was beginning to chafe at the bit. How she was so tired of being unappreciated despite everything she had done, everything she continued to do. She whispered to you dark things, about spirits with power, and of plots and conspiracies. One night, she seemed crazed before your unresponsive form and said that this was the night, this was when she would become the one true princess of the kingdom, when she would heal you and set all to rights.
She looked to the door and back to you, then leaned down and kissed your lips. It felt cold, as if to dampen the fire of the last kiss you ever had. She gently reached out and pushed ragged hair from your scar filled face. She left you then, and you knew you’d never see her again.
As the door closed for the final time, all was silent. Slowly, imperceptibly, a soft keening could be heard. It took you a very long moment to realize where the noise was coming from. Only you knew what you were saying in your despair.
You fool.
You utter, utter fool.