The end is neigh'r
Spoils of War
This is my last note, audio recording, message, whatever. It’s the fifth and I hope last one and it’ll be right this time.
I, Forgotten Memory, firstly don’t like my name and hadn’t gotten around to changing it, not like it matters. I’ve got too many awards and trophies, plaques and medals with my name on it. I do hereby leave everything I own and possess to my sister, Happy Memory, in Heaven’s Lost Valley. Let her and my family know I love them and don’t hate them or anything. I’m not doing this because of them or to hurt them.
I’m a mare of many talents, not including my magic abilities which aren’t too bad, but could be a lot better for a mare my age. Where’ve the years of my life gone in such a short time? I’ve been dumb to think everything would work out the way I wanted it too, instead of taking life as it came. I don’t really even know why I’m writing this, since most of my family is probably dead in this dumb war over what?
Mareica against the Not See’s. What will history say about us for fighting over stupid land and water? A town built by us over their subterranean homes, like they couldn’t just let us be and stay down there. And us, having to dig a well so deep as to get to the aquifer we never found and informed them of our very existence.
Generations ago the ancestors left Unicornia because of the mudders and preeners to make a perfect unicorn society and in five years nearly everything we’ve built is in ruins, if that. Many towns are simply gone. Sinkholes swallowed them whole. All their spoils went to the Not See and their own war effort.
They’re like the mudders from Unicornia’s past, only a little worse because at least the pony kind didn’t bury entire towns, just burnt and looted them from noble unicorns!
I digress and prefer not to rewrite this again, so I’ll let my prejudices subside for now. I haven’t eaten for three days as the nearest farms have gone under and the skies won’t rain without weather mages, so I’ve been sucking mud for all I can.
There’s only so many dry branches a creature can eat before even that gets old and a little too harsh on the way out, so now I look like I should after six months of hiding in a losing war. The last city, New Unicornia, is falling and I won’t be taken prisoner like so many others in towns and cities.
Sweet Goddess, I can count my ribs and vertebrae. My limbs are skin and bone beneath this uniform of kefflaria and my helmet is broken so all the readouts don’t work. And the last time I put it on the radio static was filled with screams of the front lines as they fell in battle. Screaming and begging for mercy at the… whatever it is these creatures have. Probably claws and talons honed razor sharp to cleave us open while they feast on our innards. I’m so hungry I could eat a rat, if there were any left in this city. No food, no water, no rain, limited magic… All I have left is my final spell, the spell we’re all taught when we’re old enough to spare our families and ourselves from death and enslavement from any mudder or preener that would find us and cut off our horns, shackle us, make us dance and bow to them. Never will I bow to a lower creature.
My time is near, so very close. I’m out of charges for my weapon and my own reserves I feel wane with each explosion from the enemy’s attacks, their siege weapons are without mercy, rolling through our cities like nothing.
~ <schh> @`~ <gmp> <g>
Sorry, whoever reads this, I found something to eat. I think it was a newspaper once, but it’s fiber and base minerals I need. Oh Goddess, I feel the ground trembling as they attack us. Our last city, the last of us that are free are going to die. What did we do to deserve this? We ran across the seas and plains, across the rivers, through a jungle that nearly killed us all to reach this land we call our own, only to die like the critters we play with and practice magic on as foals.
I can’t make another recording for this is it. They’re a few blocks away, rolling in and over us. Probably burrowing beneath us to feast on our suffocating bodies without a care in their mindless, hornless heads. I’m charging my spell and soon I’ll be gone before they can take me.
To any of the Not See’s, you can kiss my cutie mark. I hope I take some of you with me, you fatherless cretins.
[End Recording]
“Ma’am, they’re not responding to our hails, it’s happening again.”
“Roger that. Private, take a recording. ‘We’re at the ridge overlooking the city we have named Unicorn One. We were unable to stop the messengers from teleporting to the city and spreading the word of our arrival on this continent and by Celestia they’re still doing it. It’s the saddest thing anypony can imagine happening again. End.’”
“Recorded, sir,” the private said somberly. “I, don’t feel anything anymore. Am I a bad pony? Feeling nothing while watching them die by their own magic in fear of us, in ignorance…” he shut his eyes as tears welled up.
“Private, your eyes tell a different story,” she said, turning to him and away from the exploding city in the distance, “and that’s what we’ll tell those that have survived. That even when you didn’t think you cared anymore, that your heart went out to them.”
She turned back to look at the city with remorse then cantered ahead, down the hillside until she was near the bottom. “A whole civilization of unicorns from ages past, survived against all the odds… dead by suicide because they didn’t understand us,” she let heavy sigh escape. “And there was nothing we could do to stop it, may you all find peace,” she bowed her head and returned up the hill and past those that could stand to watch.
Each explosion rolled from the outer city to the center where finally the tall crystalline tower shattered at the bottom and began to fall. For a moment the city was calm and a hope overcame the explorers watching and noting weakly the carnage until the tower hit the city and two thirds of it exploded in suicide spells almost instantly.
She trotted through the sad ponies she commanded and the civilian explorers that had cried themselves out and rested in silent groups. She opened the dark purple tent with her magic and entered. “Sergeant, how’s it looking? Is anypony in the city willing to listen and stop this… event?”
“Nay, ma’am. We’ve tried using their own technology to send messages of peace and even surrender again, but now it’s almost all quiet. They’ve… almost sent themselves into extinction because of us,” the mare sadly sighed.
“It’s not your fault, don’t think that way. We arrived in airships we’d teleported over the jungle to save time. All of us did. The outer towns sent messengers before we understood what was happening and we were lucky, they surrendered first. Celestia, that makes us sound like what they think we are, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Kind of, ma’am.”
“We made peace with that town but learned it was too late. Even with their fears and ingrained hatred of non-unicorns I didn’t think they’d destroy their entire civilization.”
“Now what do we do, ma’am? We have four hundred confirmed survivors out of three million,” the sergeant whimpered, “three million souls lost and gone for no good reason.”
“We save those we can and help them rebuild once we’ve earned their trust and they’ve accepted our apologies. Someday they’ll understand, Sergeant, that we came as explorers and left as friends.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
Three days later
“Ma’am, we’ve found another survivor! She’s on the verge! Get medics down here, stat!” memory heard shouting and coughed weakly.
“No, I’ll heal her right now. Enough, anyway. Miss, hold still,” a mare’s authorative voice said over the others. A moment later, Memory felt better. Starving, tired, weak, but better. “Get her some rations and to the med team, keep me appraised of any more survivors!”
“We, won? Did we drive them off?”
“Shh,” the voice from before said softly as Memory felt herself being carried on a stretcher. What little she could see was rubble of her capital city. She’d always meant to visit, but not like this.
“Ma’am, they’ve ruined it all,” she said weakly, “everything is over,” she sniffled, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t even cast the spell and save myself. I was too weak to do anything.”
“You weren’t weak, you’re a survivor and will live to tell future generations of what you’ve accomplished in the wake of this event. Remember this day as the day you started a new civilization built on peace and friendship with Equestria.”
Memory sniffled again, her eyes shedding tears across the side of her head, matting her fur. “Ma’am, what’s Equestria?”
“A nation of peace and friendship where all tribes help each other and live in harmony. And please,” she fluttered her wings and offered a warm smile, “call me Twilight.”