Banished....
I walked through the grey, lifeless plains, looking over the dull majesty of my prison. Over the years I’ve seen deep canyons, rolling hills, craggy mountains, and empty plains like this one…. If only I could find something – anything – that was different. I give a breathless sigh and continue walking, thinking back on my foolishness that led to this.
I know that I shouldn’t have tried to stage a coup, but…. What other choice was there for me? I had tried to tell my sister that she was being praised and loved for the same situations that made me feared and scorned. I told her with the intention of talking about it like adults, but what did she do? She called me childish and that I should wait for our subjects to ‘warm up’ to me.
But what happened? For generations everyone kept getting further and further away from me… even my own sister. All I did was what I always did, protect the night and everyone’s dreams. When I tried to ask my sister for a holiday of rest and wonder, so I could show our subjects that I wasn’t cruel or someone to fear. She cut me off saying that the days couldn’t be shorter, as if I asked for the night to be longer when the truth couldn’t be further from that.
I give another sigh as I pass a familiar bluff and continue to wal- no. To walk more will only tire me. I look up at the planet hanging in the middle of the black void, barely visible since it was night on this side. Equus… the planet my sister and I found, under the thumb of a true despot who let an entire nation be enslaved and wreaked havoc on a whim on those who just wanted a peaceful life.
And now it seems that my sister has turned on me. For years I tried things her way but nothing came of it, and when I tried to do something about it, confront her about it, she said I was trying to overthrow her. What was going through her head for her to think that I would do such a thing? Why did she think that loyalty meant nothing to me?
All I did was not lower the moon at the proper time to show her that I wished to talk with her like usual, but when she showed up she demanded to know why I wasn’t lowering the moon. I felt my brow crease as it always did when I thought of that belligerent expression she had worn while saying that. It didn’t make sense how she was so hostile, so quick to judge, so… unlike herself.
It was wrong to try talking with her while I wasn’t lowering the moon, but… I didn’t see any other way to talk with her. I had tried to do so several times during the day and at our shared meal time, true I was tired some of those times, but she still would not take the time to talk with me. I even tried appealing to her in court once to spend time talking with me like we had long ago, before we came to this planet…. It was like she didn’t even know what I said!
And now, I was stuck here for the next however long it takes for the satellites to crash as I had remotely set them to do when I noticed I couldn’t fly. It had been hard and I could only just barely contact four of them, but I managed to call them. They were still far off, but at full burn they should be here… oh who am I kidding? It’ll be hundreds of years before they get here, maybe even a thousand total. I have to remain sane, and I cannot forget what happened. Not a single detail can I forget.
~o0o0o0o0o0o~
I step back from my sculpture, it was one of my sister in her resplendent armor with her Warhammer grasped firmly in her magic. I smile and place a hoof on the cheek of the statue, tears appearing in my eyes and freezing as they fell down my face. It’s been a hundred years since I last saw her and even though she hadn’t been as good a sister as she had been before we had found this world… I still missed her dearly. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the statue’s, wishing without hope that I could return.
The satellites were still nine hundred years away, I needed to remember… something…. That’s right. What they did to me. I pull away from the statue, my face grim as my magic wrapped around it, lifting it. I looked up at the planet above me, knowing Equestria was below me, and launched the statue towards the planet. With luck it would hit the palace she built on the side of that damned mountain, but I didn’t have much hope of it doing so.
I smiled at the thought of it slamming down in my sister’s room, chuckled without sound at the thought of it waking her from her slumber with an explosive impact big enough to send her through a wall. I sigh, knowing this isolation was getting to me, time making me bitter and resentful. But what could I have done differently? I was the one who had Loyalty, Honesty, and Laughter…. How could she think that I would betray her and try to take the country for myself? I didn’t wish that, I only wished to be treated like a pony, was that too much to ask for?
I hung my head in grief, how could they betray me so? How could they treat me as something to fear and scorn? I did just as much as my sister to make sure they were safe. Why was their reactions so different? What was wrong with me that they couldn’t understand I was a mare? I never hurt anyone who wasn’t trying to harm me or others, the same as my sister! Yet she is the one that was loved and had stallions and mares throwing themselves at her…. While I didn’t have anyone but her, and I wasn’t about to get in bed with my sister with that in mind.
After a while I sniffed and stood again, not having realized I had laid down. I shouldn’t let my senses dull like that… in fact I shouldn’t let my strength or reflexes wane either. I should write down the details I remember too so I can just look at where I wrote them every so often.
~o0o0o0o0o0o~
I gave a silent roar and brought my swords down on the golem, cutting through its neck with an edge so cold it burned and making it slump to the ground. While my sister was better with spells in general, I was a master with enchantments and making the inanimate animate. She would have a very bad time with fighting me in…. I check on the satellites and see that they are five hundred forty-two years, seven months, twenty days, four hours, and six minutes away. It will be that long until I can return to the planet, but I can wait. I have time, resources to gather, and training to do.
Two hundred years ago, I found a piece of ore while I was digging around a sand castle to make a moat. I hadn’t known what it was, but with heat I was able to shape it into a bar. After that it was easy to tell what it was. It was a piece of Stellarium and in its raw form it was what made up the stars around here and was what flowed through the veins of the great Star Beasts that roamed the world. It was easy to heat and shape, but when cooled it was far more durable than any other metal we had found…. It’s what drew my sister and me to this part of the galaxy, though what those who told us about it forgot to tell us that it short-circuited electronics.
I gave a gasp as I realized that’s what stranded us on Equus, far from the rest of the galaxy. My sword fell from my grasp and I looked towards the satellites, fear in my eyes that they would get Stellarium stuck in their intakes or get struck by a flare from a star. I didn’t want to be stuck here for the rest of my life! I wanted to see my sister again and I didn’t want to be stuck as a virgin for the rest of my life….
I give a grunt as I feel something break across my back, sending me sprawling and my sword slicing into the ground next to me easily to the hilt. The golem had put itself back together just as it was meant to and I let myself be distracted. Before it sent its hammer down at my head I sent a surge of magic through it, destroying the enchantment in it and making it crumble.
There, I have other things to do now. Things to remember and ore to mine. I need to get a full set of armor and another sword to match my first one…. I should name them. I doubt I’ll discard them after I get back.
~o0o0o0o0o0o~
Three hundred years until they get here. Three hundred years I have left to wait until I can see Celestia again…. I can’t believe she sent me here, she’s my own sister! She must have been corrupted by those damned nobles. Ha, there’s nothing noble about them. Even now I can’t understand what she saw in them to keep them around. Well, that will change when I get back. I don’t plan on getting another knife in the back when I take over.
I chip away another sliver from the statue I was making, nodding to myself as it looked perfect for my uses. I had been getting better with my aiming over the years and with a telescopic enchantment on my helmet I could put this wherever I wanted. And right now I wanted this right in the castle on that mountain.
I lift the statue with my magic, looking up at the planet above me and searching for my sister’s castle. It took me a few minutes, but I was able to find it. I aimed the statue towards the castle, making sure to compensate for atmospheric interference and send it flying towards the planet as fast as I could throw it which was considerable.
I hope this one gets her to think about me and how I am returning as soon as I could. I know… or at least I think I could, make her see what I had been saying, or trying to say at least. Why didn’t she listen? Was it because she’s only a year older than me that she thinks she knows what she’s doing better than I? Or was it that she had been blinded to my feelings by the power we had been given? I wish I had given thought to making a detailed account of what happened when I landed here. Without it I fear I might be twisting what had happened.
~o0o0o0o0o0o~
They’re here. Within the far reaches of my teleport range…. I’m… almost afraid to go back. It’s been a thousand years, would she recognize me? Would she even remember me? I can’t be sure, but I do know that I need to go. I need to get back to my sister. My heart has been hurting all this time because I couldn’t see her, couldn’t find her dreams…. I couldn’t talk with her.
The satellites were getting closer, and I now realized I had set them on a collision course with the moon. I had to go now or I would be stranded here until I could piece together something to launch me off of here. I lit my horn, focusing on the teleport spell. I couldn’t believe I was going to be heading back. I’d break the spell the Elements put on me and escape the moon…. I could hardly believe it. They were almost in the moon’s sphere of influence I had to go now.
I teleport onto one of the satellites, taking only a second to teleport to the next one, then the next one, then the fourth and final one. With that, I feel the spell snap and my full power rushes back to me, feeling like far more than I had before I was imprisoned on my moon. I smile and light my horn one last time.