Prologue: The Strings We Tangle
The Weaving of Tales
Prologue: The Strings We Tangle
Each dainty hoof came down on the friable and cracked pavement with more force, causing the brittle material to shed in a flurry of grey flakes. The alabaster limb displaced the dust as she walked hurriedly, like the matted pink mane dragging behind her did. Her breath was hitched in her already tight throat, her breath coming in wheezes due to fear and the unaccustomed exertion. Brimming amethyst eyes, shining with tears and desperation that showed in her purposeful pace, her trot stumbling every so often like a mare who had galloped for thousands of miles.
She was like a mute ghost, gliding along the way in the expanse of grey that was the ruins towering her and shrouding her in shadows and secrets. She looked like a ghost too, her white coat turned a slight shade of grey from the dense amount of linty powder that would drift up and bite her coat with every stride she took, her pale hair nearly a shade of unkempt pink-grey from neglect and suffering from the same treatment her coat got.
She bit her lip, hard, drawing a crimson drop of blood that dripped to join the droplets of tears that splashed onto the asphalt of the brittle material that made the road. Tears stung as they paved a clean track down her cheeks through the dust. The mare ran on, her tangled and uncombed hair catching and twisting around twigs and leaves that clung to the ratty tendrils of pink.
She glanced around briefly at her rapidly shifting landscape, barely noting the claw of the cold breeze that wound through the two crumbling structures on her either side and dug down her spine, sending shudders along her back. She skidded around a tight street corner and promptly knocked into a dilapidated and mossy cobblestone wall, pieces of loose gravel and dislodged greenery tumbling to the pavement underhoof where they were pounded to dust underneath the mare’s moving and merciless hooves. The mare froze.
A sickly and diseased stench wafted into her nostrils, against her will.
A glistening white and vaguely equine-shaped skull stared back at her, a side of the skeletal jaw jutting and cracked, a thin strip of ivory bone was bent horrifyingly, curled and almost shattered by a powerful claw’s grip, and then brutally decapitated in a single twist. The empty and gaping eye sockets, hollow and lacking of organic matter, scrutinised her intensely, judging her in a deathly silence. A broken and gnarled stump, the pitiful remains of what was once a horn, was crowned on the skull’s forehead. The damaged jaw swung, unhinged and gaping, in the slight wind from where the skull was hung for all to see. The message was as crystal clear as it would have been if the words ‘Keep Out’ were scrawled in scarlet. The mare knew her blood was red, just like the liquid life that ran through the veins of her equine siblings, despite the popular belief. Enough of it had spilled to prove that.
The ever-increasing tears that kept rising to her eyes froze as she stared into the blank and lifeless holes where a regular pony’s eyes should usually be. Bitter bile rose in the back of her throat and a wail of despair fought its way up to her tight lipped mouth. A wave of hopelessness crashed over her, her previous confidence shattering into thousands of tiny and lonely shards. She tried to stop, but a piercing thought occupied her mind anyway. Is that going to be me?
Her legs moved on their own accord, each step more automatic and robotic rather than a conscious decision. Her steps were soft and gentle, as if afraid she would accidentally wake the dead. The tears that previously flooded forth had stopped, her gaze now blank. She swallowed and ignored the beheaded skulls, their eyeless sight boring into her every time she turned her back. Her surroundings were starting to haze. Amidst the despondence, a black metallic door swam into view. She sighed disconsolately, gloom fogging her mind and making every sense dull and blurry. The door was starting to dissolve within her sight. She slumped against a wall, invisible to her, and closed her eyes tightly.
A low male baritone rang out, the tune haunting and eerie.
“Destiny’s tapestries unspun,
Order singles none,
The system overrun,
The apocalypse has begun. “
Her eyes cracked open. Pools of yellow gold with dots of glaring red stared back in asymmetrical curiosity. A sudden rush of flaming warmth washed over her and she gasped, her eyes widening. What happened? She felt…less…grey.
An eagle talon removed itself from where it had been forcefully pressed against her clammy forehead.
The mare blinked dizzily, letting her sight focus before she rubbed her eyes out of habit. Her vision swam again and nausea disintegrated with a hiss of defiance. It returned with a triumphant roar when she peered at her captor. He circled her predatorily, humming, making her head spin as she observed him in turn under his scrutiny, watching the strange creature in horrified fascination. She registered that she was no longer where she had been, but instead stranded in a dark room, shadowed and lacking of furnishings and features. The expanse of black had no visible walls or a floor, but the hard and solid material that held its place beneath her spoke otherwise.
A burgundy snake’s tail slithered and a tuft of snowy hair stroked the similarly coloured strands under a grey equine chin. Draconic fangs gleamed as the chimera smiled with mirth that did not reflect in his eyes, which blazed with an inner fire. A greenish dragon claw scraped the ground and the reptilian limb caused several pale grooves to be scratched into the dark floor. A furry paw flexed in thinly veiled threat and sharp sabres unsheathed themselves on the feline appendage. The creature’s smile dwindled into a smirk.
“Were you looking for me?” His voice, obviously the baritone from before, oozed through the awkward tension that had begun to grow denser in the mare’s silence.
She quickly lifted a hoof to her head, fragments of memories piecing together hastily as she remembered why she was there in the first place. She got up from her sprawled position on the mysterious floor. She regarded the draconequus, desperation seeping into her voice as she pleaded.
“Yes! Help me! My sister! She-“
Two talons clamped her mouth tightly, the squeeze carrying a hint of amusement, like his eyes. He spoke nonchalantly.
“Yes, I’m aware of her situation. I know who you are too.”
His answer made the mare stagger in discomfort, her mind reeling at the unforeseen possibility. She smiled nervously, fear raking through her, like how a casual paw would claw through her hair, impossibly not getting tangled in the pink mess. Her voice cracked, her grin faltering.
“How di-“
“Being the most powerful unicorn mage in Equinity tends to get attention.”
His sinister smile was blatantly ignored by the mare, her anxiety rising like a tide, growing by the second. She tried to canter near the creature, but he was suddenly on the other side of her, hovering above the ground, defying gravity without a flap of his mismatched wings. She disregarded this, turning around and begging again. She had done her research, worked so hard to be able to find the Lord of Chaos.
“Then help! My sister! Luna! She’s sick! She needs-“
Laughter. Cold, deflated and void of any emotion, vacant and cold like the eye sockets of the dead slaughtered ponies. Celestia shivered at the malevolence that filled the seemingly desolate vocal chords of the chimera. It was the laughter of pure evil.
A claw, mockingly tender and gentle, cupped her cheek and tilted her chin upwards, causing her to flinch, two pairs of eyes, red and purple, meeting each other. The red pair reflected the purple’s fear back at her derisively. His voice, flat and smooth, spoke up.
“What are you willing to do for her cure?”
A price. Celestia cleared her throat, her wind pipe clenching on reflexive dread. The risk of desolation threatened to drown her. She met the Discord’s stare in a meek rebellion.
“Anything.”
The same empty, soul-chilling laughter followed, the draconequus’s face turned away from the unicorn. When he turned back to her, his expression was deadly serious, but had a malicious grin splitting his face in two.
“…Anything?”