The Marching Madness
Ah, another soul ready to climb up. For that, you have my respect, for all the good it will do to you. Yes, I am the Storyteller… It’s what I do and what I am, simple as that… So, what tale do you want to hear? Something heroic? A dashing story of adventure and lost treasures? You want what? Oh, I see, unusual choice, but I simply provide a service, and I never question my audience.
Let’s start from the beginning of my story. Well, not really the beginning, I don’t think you would care about the first ten years of my life. They are important memories I cherish and treasure along with those of my parents, but let’s be honest, they are a bit boring, and in the grand scheme of things they play a very minor role.
My father was a farmer, a honest, hard working pony, salt of the earth, strong and gentle. My mother was a piper, not really talented enough to tame the wilderness all on her own, but she could get you a safe passage and guard the border of the farm. Both worked very hard to give me a happy foalhood and, for what they could, stability in this mad, mad world.
All this crumbled when the First Chair died, and his apprentice wasn't good enough to fill his position. The wilderness started to reclaim the borders. Musicians like my mother could only slow it down. We had to go, but not all together; no other settlement could receive and feed a whole village. Our composer contemplated the chaos outside, then, directed by glimpses of things to come, gave each family a score that would lead them to distant relatives or other known communities.
As we left, I saw my father cry for the first and last time. My mother didn't show much, but I know now that it was hard for her too. Me, I thought it was an adventure. You know how it is when you are a colt: everything is new and luminous, there’s nothing a hug from mom can’t solve, and dad is the biggest and strongest pony ever. What I’m saying is, I was pretty dumb, like every foal of that age. Now, now, don’t act like I said something horrible, it’s that stupidity that lets us dream a better world, it’s there that hope is born, and we should do everything possible to protect it. Time wears us down enough without us shattering our own sweet illusions.
So, where was I? Ah, yes…
For the first time in my life, I left the shrinking borders of my old home, my father pulling a cart with all our earthly belongings, my mother playing an upbeat theme, perfect for a trip, carving a little path of coherence in the boiling chaos of the world. I was full of energy and curiosity, and gasped at the wonderful sights outside the path. For all its danger and insanity, the wilderness can be full of beauty and marvels. I saw giant flowers laughing at a green sun, dew dripping from them and crystallizing into incredible cities that shattered into diamond mist when they touched the whipped cream soil. Swarms of translucent books played around a towering five-headed stone giant that painted the sky with broad strokes of ennui.
There were horrors too, but I really can’t remember them, just the haunted look in my parents’ eyes as they distracted me from the worst. We traveled for a few sleeping cycles, the night chasing the day in the unfathomable rhythm of creation. Each time we stopped, my mother created a camp. It was a well known piece that permitted her to recover, but even so, fatigue was taking its toll on her. We were maybe one more rest away from Placid Meadow, where some of my mother’s cousins lived, when the dissonant Parade caught us.
It started with the path flickering, and then shattering before and behind us. The wilderness, an almost solid wall of rapidly mutating reality, came crashing down to reclaim what we had conquered, boiling with feverish visions, screaming at us, who had dared to tame it. Bubble fairies laughed under the shadow of the great lizard queen, crying black tar that fell onto a patchwork of broken dreams and candy. A cardboard pony ran circles around us, declaiming incomprehensible mathematical rhymes that oozed sideways, staining the air with a wretched smell. My mother tried frantically to improvise something even vaguely harmonical to contrast the whirlwind of nonsense around us, but it wasn't enough. Trapped inside a little spot of coherence, we heard the horrid laughter, and then the chaos parted, showing the incoming procession of insane dancers, musicians and lost souls.
Four-winged pegasi left rainbow trails around flipping and jumping earth ponies with too long legs danced to a music only they could hear, stomping and kicking each other with cruel giggles. Unicorns with beaks showered the scene with negative light fireworks. It all clashed together in a ferocious brawl, tambourines, each following a different tempo, deformed metallic cellos howling against the heavens, and angry, joyless dances filled with biting and hitting. In the center of the Parade, garish painted carts of wood and iron decorated with the bodies of ponies, dangling from them like broken marionettes, suffering groans coming from inside, a spiderlike creature on the biggest wagon improvising a puppet show with them.
I’m not too keen on remembering what followed when they reached us, even after all these years. My father died first, or at least I think and hope he did; one could never be sure. As for my mother…
Let me only say that something else happened to her. I don’t know exactly what they did, maybe I forgot or maybe I never understood, but at the end she wasn't anymore. And they made me watch. They almost never take adults alive, but colts and fillies were fine additions for their deranged festival. If things had gone differently, maybe I would be out there foaming and laughing without joy.
But salvation came, and this is what you are really here for, not the ramblings of an old stallion. No, believe me, I know your kind, now listen…
It began with a rhythmic thumping, then the pulsing of a bass I felt in my hooves, then a fiddle cutting through the dissonance like a hot knife through butter. For the first time in, I suspect, a very long time, the Parade was silent. Then a deep voice, raw and grating, yet warm and powerful, started to sing an old harvest song, about the suffering brought by bad weather and harsh winters, and about the strength to carry on. And that voice, that music, that power, blasted the wilderness open in a storm of lightning and fire.
In the middle of it all stood four ponies.
To my young eyes, they looked like the legends of the past, before the Harmony War and the fall of the old order. There was a giant brown stallion with a black mane, the biggest pony I'd ever seen before or since, pounding with his hooves on the ground and shaking the world with his thunder. Beside him was a pegasus with a deep green coat and a white mane, her left side covered in scars and her left wing crippled, playing a golden fiddle that set the air aflame. Between them was the singer, a unicorn with a broken horn, blue fur and steel grey mane, an aura of power visible around him. The last was the contrabass player, a bright yellow mare with a fiery red mane and a piece of tissue covering her eyes, her deep melody like the bones of the mountains: solid, unshakable, eternal.
The world reshaped around them, shimmering golden fields replacing the wilderness, as the Parade regained itself and, howling, renewed their wild confusion. The creatures that were holding me down let me go and charged against the band. But I knew something they didn't: the second part of the song, the one that talked about raging against the chaos and confusion, the angry part. I instinctively ran behind a rock, covered my ears and closed my eyes. I still could feel the unrelenting pounding, the precise bass, the air vibrating. And then there was silence.
I became suddenly aware that I was screaming, tears flowing freely. Somepony tapped on my shoulder. I fell silent, opened my eyes and looked up. There stood the brown stallion, a gentle look on his face. I stood and emerged from my hiding place. The shattered remains of the Parade’s wagons were everywhere, and a few corpses littered the field surrounded by heaps of ash, the only remains of those who had fully embraced chaos. The bodies lying there were ponies, without the extraneous parts I had seen on them before. They looked almost peaceful, maybe resting for the first time in many years. I walked in shock through the wreckage, the stallion following me a few steps behind, until I reached the clearing. As I saw the fiddler and the singer composing the remains of my parents, I let out a broken sigh, and ran to them. I fell down, hugging the corpses, and howling in anguish. I’m not sure how long I remained there, the screaming became crying, then sobbing. At some point, my voice gave out and I could only cough.
I think I passed out at some point, because when I was shaken awake by the brown stallion, it was night. A few makeshift torches had been placed around a rudimentary camp. At a little distance, a funeral pyre had been built, and the stallion led me there, as I tried to rub the sleep and the exhaustion from my eyes. There, on the unlit pyre, lay my parents. They had cleaned them up and given them some dignity. I stood there, staring, lost, until somepony tugged at my side. It was the stallion from before. He reached in his saddle purse, pulled out my mother’s broken flute and gave it to me. I looked at it for a while, the reality of the situation settling down inside my mind, and let out a sob. I hadn't any more tears. The stallion trotted briefly to the camp, then came back with a torch that he stuck in the ground beside me. He then took a few steps back, and pointed at it.
I nodded, took the torch, and lit the pyre. As the flames embraced the two bodies, a deep humming came from behind,a requiem sung by the singer without words to lead my parents to what came next. Their spirits would live on, and their bodies would not be ravaged by the wilderness. I looked back, to the fire consuming what remained of my infancy, grateful for these last moments I shared with the two ponies I loved most.
At the end of the sleep cycle, two quick nights later, the group started dismantling their camp. I had had an unruly sleep, nightmares tormenting me, and now I was tired and unsure what would become of me. I looked up at my saviors, the fiddler feeding the bassist with tissue on her eyes. The singer was gathering their meager belongings, while the drummer loaded an old battered cart.
I walked over and, not looking directly at him, asked. “We were, I mean, I was… I need to go to Placid Meadow. There are some relatives there, and I don’t know where else to go and…” He interrupted me by placing a giant hoof on my shoulder and shaking his head, a sad look in his eyes.
“W-what?” I asked. “is there a problem? Has something happened to Placid Meadow?” He simply pointed in the direction of the wreckage of the dissonance Parade. I looked around, and could only say, “Oh, I see…” I fell on my hindquarters, the weight of my situation pressing down on me like a lead blanket and then, too drained to even cry, I contemplated my fate from a distance, feeling just a vague connection with the stupid little colt sitting in that clearing.
A whistle put an end to my musings. Confused I saw that the band had finished loading up their camp. The fiddler had a rope around her chest, the other end held in the bassist’s mouth. The singer was pulling the smaller cart, while the drummer had attached himself to my parents’ supply cart and was gesturing for me to follow. I jumped up and trotted to them, my first glimmer of hope in what felt like an eternity.
And so started my voyage with the band. They never said a word, even Singer, yet still I came to know them a little. Drummer was the most extroverted, and gave the tempo during travel, shaping a semblance of order we could walk upon. Bassist was blind; I once saw her without the tissue, and her eyes were no more. She was gentle with me. Fiddler cared for her, leading her, feeding her, helping her with all the little things. The rest of the time, the flightless pegasus read the same book again and again, a tourist guide to Cloudsdale, whatever that was, and played lullabies. Singer was a wonderful cook and a horrible chess player. Losing against a blank flank didn't seem to bother him. As we walked, he would often start to hum something, never finishing it. It took me a while to realize that it was always the same particular theme, an unfinished tale that added to the mystery of that strange gang. They all had one thing in common: a horrible scar where their cutie marks should have been. I never asked what happened, not that I would have received an answer, but I thought it must be the reason for their silence.
In contrast to my mute guardians, I would chatter on and on. I don’t think it disturbed them, maybe with the exception of Fiddler, but at the time the possibility never crossed my mind. I talked as we were walking, blabbed when the camp was prepared, jabbered during the dinner, blathered myself to sleep hugging somepony, and started the prattle again when I woke up. I was trying to fill the void with stories, nonsensical rhymes, half remembered poems, old fables and whatever else passed through my mind. The only time I was silenced was when I started to sing, as I had never inherited even a little amount of my mother’s talent.
We came across a few settlements, or the remains of them. Where once little towns had cut out an oasis of peace from the wilderness, only smoking ruins infested by pockets of chaos and disfigured corpses remained. The traces of the dissonance Parades were evident, and every time we saw another memento to destroyed lives, I could see hatred and fury in the eyes of my companions.
The first time I helped build the pyre for the remains of a small village, I asked Drummer, “Are you hunting the Parades?” He looked down at me — he looked down at everypony — and shook his head. “Then where are you, I mean, where are we going?” He trotted to the cart, and came back with an old scroll. I carefully opened it.
To all those who can shape the world with music
To those that want to restore order
To those that believe that a better world can be rebuilt
The last princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle
Calls heroes and musicians of talent to Canterlot
To the most important Festival that was ever hold
Together we can bring the Harmony back!
Together we can shape Equestria again!
Together we can bring peace to these lands!
At the end of the scroll was a little note and a musical transcript that I recognized as the one Singer often hummed. The note said, “This score will help you find the way to the base of the great stairway. Once there you need to ascend it, as it is the only way to the great sky castle.”
I looked skeptically at the scroll. I had heard the stories about the last princess of Equestria, the only survivor in the war against Discord, but it was a very old legend. My father had said that his grandfather's grandfather had told it. I rolled the scroll up and gave it back to Drummer.
“How old is this?” He only shrugged as he brought it back to the cart, carefully stowing it away. As he came back I asked him, “Don’t you think that this festival has already passed?” He shrugged again. “Don’t you care that maybe you are making this long journey for something that doesn't exist anymore?” I was exasperated. He smiled and shook his head.
Our voyage continued for another month, thirty sleeping cycles of repelled dangers, daring escapes and bitter fights. We had been hunted by the ponyfication of the color grey. We trudged through a storm of chocolate milk. We needed to pay respect to the king of the bells and his armies, his reign raised and destroyed in one thousand heartbeats, and we found more and more razed communities.
A storm was brewing inside our souls, and even my chattering became more sparse. With each destroyed village, each display of senseless violence, I felt a cold fury grow inside me, fed by my pain and the horrors the Parades inflicted upon ponykind. Then, one day, standing before a burned down school, like the one I went to what seemed a lifetime ago, my anger coagulated into resolve. I grabbed a spear from the ground, its head dirty with blood. It hadn't saved the ponies of this nameless village, but it would avenge them. I couldn't make music, I couldn't reshape the world, but I surely could ram a pointy stick through the culprits of this obscenity. As I turned to my comrades, I saw a brief glimpse of guilt on the face of Drummer, pain in the eyes of Singer, and an approving nod from Fiddler.
As we proceeded in the coming cycles, the forest around us became slowly more normal, the traces of chaos diminished. Then we heard the distant drums beating conflicting rhythms. As the forest slowly cleared, other instruments joined in a cacophony that hurt our very souls. I gnashed my teeth, tears dropping from my eyes. And as we finally came out from under trees atop a big hill, the spectacle beneath us elicited a gasp from Fiddler, and left me speechless.
In the distance, in the middle of fields and orchards, sat the biggest settlement I'd ever seen, a thing that seemed one of the legendary cities of old. The oasis of order it had created was so big I couldn't see the borders on the other side. From the center of the city, a spiral stairway ascended into the sky, punching through the clouds, up to a floating castle of staggering beauty, the sun reflecting on the white walls and glittering on the windows. And yet even this scene was tainted. Between us and the city was the Parade, a sickening mass of howling, foaming, pulsing creatures, a horrid abscess of chaos infecting the valley, with more and more madness coming from all directions and gathering there.
We could hear the faint music of the defenders from the city walls, but it was drowned out by the discordant noise. I looked at my companions, and saw that the shock was fading.
Fiddler whispered in Bassist’s ear. Drummer moved the carts under the trees, bringing the instruments back. Meanwhile Singer had started to trace strange symbols in the dirt. The brown stallion returned, wearing metallic horse shoes and carrying my spear, then shoved me out of the circle the unicorn was creating. At my protests he simply gave me the weapon and indicated a tree. He pointed at the circle, and made it abundantly clear that I shouldn't go there. I stared at him, not understanding. He simply gave me a warm smile and patted me on the shoulder, then entered the almost finished design , looking out on the valley.
Fiddler and Bassist came. The pegasus looked at me, and hugged me for the first time. I could feel warm tears on my shoulder, and was about to say something as she pulled back, dried her eyes with a hoof, and smiled. Bassist gave me a kiss on my forehead. They took their instruments and joined the others in the circle. Singer simply waved at me, then turned in direction of the blasphemous festival.
Drummer hit the ground, and the sound, stronger than thunder, rolled down the hill. Another hit, another one, fusing in a precise tempo. Bassist added to that, and the ground began to shake. Fiddler interweaved a sound more luminous than the sun, sharper than a sword. The circle began to glow, the Parade turned, a tide of chaos coming up to us. Singer let out a howl of pain, and began with a song about the paradise we had lost. His voice was rough and a grating, yet it flowed like fresh water. It was a river washing over the valley, an earthquake shaking the foundations of the world, a storm sweeping away horror and dirt. The bindings that held the place together were disbanded and reformed in a new shape, chaos was molded in a image of the old world. The band shone like a star down onto earth. I don’t know how the gods of old were, but I’m sure I saw the new ones that day.
As I stared at them I started to notice other things. Bassist’s skin was stretching, opening wounds. What remained of singer’s horn crumbled. Fiddler’s healthy wing creaked and was bowing at unnatural angles, and Drummer started spitting blood. They continued, ignoring the pain, but it still wasn't enough. The screeching dissonant sea slowed down under wave after wave of power, creatures collapsing and turning to dust, but it didn't stop. The band was sacrificing themselves, and I was here, a colt without any talent, a useless spear, witnessing the end of everything good.
And I suddenly understood. It wasn't important if the festival in Canterlot had ended or not, or if it would really save the world. The important thing was hope, doing something for a better tomorrow.
I cried out, took my weapon and threw it with all my strength against the rising chaos. It never reached it: I was too young and inexperienced. But I could do something else, so I ran and jumped into the circle of light. the moment I entered the spell the world around me disappeared, and I was floating in the void. No sound, no light, only a question in my mind.
What are you willing to sacrifice?
The wordless question swam in my mind. What could I offer? I was a young dumb talentless colt, without cutie mark, without family, without even the innocence that had been murdered a lifetime ago. I didn't feel ready to offer my remaining time on this earth, not now that I had come so far and seen so much, not only despair and horror but also marvels and hope. As I racked my brain, something coherent formed in the back of my mind. I thought I finally understood some of the things the others had sacrificed. I had a name. I still had the potential of my talent, not yet expressed on my flank. I had the certainty that I would have a place in the world, one of the few fixed points that ponykind still retained. Maybe it was worth something, maybe…
So be it.
I heard those words, burning in my brain, followed by searing pain, and then nothing.
They told me later that when the song started to talk about hope, a blinding light washed away the whole valley. The horrid Parade shattered like glass under a hammer, the pockets of disorder burst and evaporated, and the old borders of the settlement expanded.
As I came to my senses again I was in total darkness. I started panicking until a soothing voice talked to me, calming me down. I was in the city of the stairway, Ponyville, and had been out for a week. My eyes were burned out sockets and scars covered the points where my cutie marks should be. The band had provided for me and found somepony to care for me as they had ascended to the castle.
They had also left me a book, one my new caretaker would read for me. It was Drummer’s journal, narrating the whole story from before they had met me. I raged, thinking they had abandoned me, feeling betrayed, abandoned a second time. It took weeks before I finally opened up to those who would become my new family, fearing they would go away like so many before. It took me months before I could even consider the idea of talking about the musicians. But becoming older means that a little bit of wisdom rubs off on you; what was only acceptance became forgiveness, and in the end love and respect.
With the passing of the years, my caretaker read Drummer's diary to me enough times that I knew it by heart. I started to tell the story again to anypony that would listen, and they told me their own in return. I will never know what my talent was, but I liked to talk and I had a decent memory. Before I knew it, I became the Storyteller and at last gained a new identity to replace the one I sacrificed.
What? Oh, I don’t know with whom or what I made the exchange. I described what I saw there to a traveling seer a few years ago. She couldn't divine much: some of the symbols apparently were ancient, older than the war or even the age that came before. As for the rest, even the blabbering pandemonium that is the wilderness was strangely silent. Drummer never wrote where they found that kind of magic. I think he feared it, whatever it is, though it didn't seem malicious to me. Maybe there is something underlying everything, a foundation for harmony and chaos. It would be comforting to know that there are some fundamental, eternal rules, even if they are cruel and unyielding.
I never left Ponyville again, what would an old, blind stallion do out there, after all? I have been here for the many that came to go up there, sometimes solitary players, sometimes whole orchestras. I have gathered everypony’s stories, I remember them all, and I tell them again when somepony like you comes along and asks.
Many decades have passed since then. You may think they have failed, but time is very different on the stairway. Those who have returned from the ascension say they haven’t managed to pass the many obstacles up there: riddles, guardians, devious traps. They returned after a few hours, but down here years have passed. So I am sure that the Fiddler, the Singer, the Drummer and the Bassist are still fighting their way up, and when they arrive in the great festival in Canterlot, they will reshape the world to what it once was.