An Eye

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The waves twisted and contorted, spiraling around the sides of an arrow shaped wooden craft. Bubbles fizzled around the sides and end of the small craft, colored an unsightly mix of dark green and murky white foam. The swell swirled endlessly against the sides in this motion, pounding and jarring the moderately sized craft.

Below the surface of the icy waters, the steel ballast jutted forward, slicing through the waves in a remarkably intense motion. Among the various pockmarks in the metal, the steel itself was discolored, showing a decent amount of aging. Wood, hard as stone, cared not for the onslaught of water.

An elegant if, if not slightly unremarkable vessel, the small brig pushed through the calm waters with a practiced ease, the masts of the ship catching the wind easily. The deck of the vessel pushed far above the depth of the deck, proving to be an effective barrier against the occasionally large swell.

More interesting than the ship, perhaps was it’s single occupant. Standing slumped over the back of the vessel, her horn shone with a dim glow. Fur slightly matted, her eyes appeared weary, glazed over indiscriminately with an air of unease and lackluster attitude.

As the wind caught her faded indigo and pink mane, her eyes, a striking dark violet, flickers briefly to the clashing of waves over the starboard. Sighing with a shake of her head, the mare’s eyes glazed back over once again, a state of catatonia entering her without a second glance.

Horn flickering, a pinkish glow settled over the helm, flicking it slightly to the port, moving against the wind for a moment before the vessel suddenly lurched. The mare made no indication of surprise by this notion, instead opting with an ever present silence. This brief moment of action died down very quickly, leaving the vessel to move somewhat unaided for the next few minutes, while it’s lone occupant stood stone still, naught a trace of life in her actions.

High in the sky, the unnatural movement of the clouds sailed past lazily, conforming only to the wind, a sky devoid of pegasi and down below, a sea devoid of life. The sun dared not move from it's silent vigil, hovering ominously above the murky ocean, one that stretched on forever in all directions.

The sky, dark blue with splashes of white, hid an object even more out of the ordinary. Round, massive, and worst of all, perfectly fitting. It’s form was enormous, outlined merely by the atypical cloud cover. The mare refused to look up, instead opting for her sentinel like silence.

Her catatonia was shattered quite strikingly by a voice whispering to her on the wind, one that was all so familiar, yet unnervingly distant in memory. Spinning around with spine bending force, the mare screamed indiscriminately in horror. Locked in a mental cage as she was, the alicorn could not understand the voice, only know who it was from.

“Twilight.” It’s call was one of a youthful nature, made with a complete lack of emotion. The alicorn trembled, sweat beading on her salty fur. How unnatural such a whisper was, to be heard over the resounding calls of the waves and the reverberating gales of wind.

Across the breeze, her nostrils picked up the familiar salty stench of the sea, and just as well, one she hardly could recognize anymore. It smelled of coffee, hay, and….and….gems.

The distraught alicorn clenched her jaws taut, eyes slamming shut as the smell overwhelmed her, forceful memories pounding into her brain with unrelenting ferocity. Thoughts and recollections she had long fought to silence tore into her mind furiously.

Screaming out in torment, the mare collapsed to the deck gripping her frazzled head in terror. It’s voice called to her once more, this time with more emotion. Fearful, it’s tone was that of a lost child.

“Twilight!” The call slammed into her dazed senses like a monstrous slap, breaking over her in a pulse of despair. Heart hammering within her battered ribcage, the mare became listless, floating away from her consciousness desperately.

This was a futile mistake she had made, as the massive looming beast of a storm approached unheeded by the nearly comatose alicorn. Such a fierly catatonic state would not have been able to unrendered even by Luna at this point, had she been there.

However deep in the crags of the alicorn’s mind did the despaired memories lie, the images of a dragon, of several colorful mares piled onto a ship as the sea enveloped everything and everyone. Such memories bore considerable gaps, where one by one the figures vanished.

All that was left was her.

She was shocked back to her senses as a sudden upsurge in the current caught the vessel’s sails, twisting it over port and reeling her forward against the bulwarks. Moaning loudly as her body crumpled against the heavy wooden beams, the mare’s eyes refocused upon the monstrous swell seizing her ship from the opposite side.

Limbs snapping into action on their own, the mare pushed away the pain, shoving herself upwards with a grunt. The darkness of the massive, looming clouds swept over the moderately sized vessel. Throwing herself into action, the mare’s horn lit fully, a warm magenta glow encompassing the ship’s helm.

Snapping the helm into the brewing sails, the mare influenced the rigging with intricate, practiced motions, meshing the sails back together before the dangerous winds could wreak havoc. Lurching into the swell, the mare manipulated the sails and helm at the same time with a firm grimace.

Skirting along the outside of the sudden squall, the mare cursed her incompetence for having not noticed the encroaching weather. With a roaring torrent of sound, the crashing of winds and waves smashed against the hull of the ship, spiralling over and onto the deck.

Snarling lowly, the magenta mare pushed forwards, making minute adjustments to the helm, just barely managing to keep the vessel level with the sloshing waves and attempting to not slip on the deck as the torrential downpour grew ever steadier. In mere moments the mare’s hearing was completely encompassed by the low roar of rain and wind.

With a barely restrained cry of anger, the alicorn flapped her wings heartily, steadying herself as the ship roade high upon an enormous swell of water. The storm had quickly overtaken the vessel, and now she was forced to fight mother nature in her most dangerous of terrain.

A deep thump erupted in the dark gray and greenish looking sky, the motionless sun completely blotted out by the murky clouds. Following the cavernous bellows of thunder came an enormous crack, like that of shattering glass, beams of lightning cutting through the sky.

Riding the mountainous waves took several more minutes of survival, pushing against the might of the ocean, torrents of water sweep over her deck and washing loose supplies around with a furious energy. Once or twice the mare had to short range teleport herself onto the topsails, balancing precariously atop the beams while simultaneous manipulating the helm, pressing her concentration and mental endurance to it’s limits.

Blinking back down to the helm, the mare steadied herself upon the railings, breathing heavily as her rain drenched coat weighed her down further. Her fatigue caused an almost imperceptible short lapse in concentration, one that resulted in her losing control of the wheel for the briefest moments.

Within a second, the control shifted, lurching the vessel violently to the opposite of the powerful winds. With a despaired and startled cry, the alicorn was tossed roughly to the deck, slamming mercilessly against the railing along the port.

Moaning in pain, the mare forced herself to her hooves, adrenaline pumping like a fountain through her veins. Horn snapping to light with a nearly audible crack, she gripped the helm fiercely, rotating it starboard, rising over the waves threatening to capsize her vessel.

Breathing heavily, although drowned out by the droning rumble of wind and water, the alicorn roade up the massive swell, barely avoiding being tipped over into the swirling ocean below. The squall’s viscous strength caused the hull of the brig to creak ominously over the roaring waves, the masts being pushed nearly to their breaking point.

Looking up, the mare caught the outline of the sun, motionless above the swirling clouds, the muddy yellow outline giving her hope to the inevitable end of the storm. Spinning the helm back to port with a gasp, the sails caught an even stronger burst of winds, launching the ship back down the lurching wave, plummeting back down the swell with an almost unsteady speed and energy. With precise turning of the helm, the alicorn was just able to control her descent, riding the wave nearly parallel to the water. Feeling the sea spray against her face sent an exciting jolt of nervous energy down her spine, lightning her drenched coat on fire.

As the wave petered out, rising and sloshing around with far less intensity than before, the mare enjoyed the momentary break in the action, before resuming her trek through the squall. Utilizing the ten seconds or so of relative calm, she lowered parts of the ship’s rigging, pulling parts of the sails taut.

For as far as her vision could make was the storm, she would need to last this out. The surge resumed, picking up and displacing the relatively light vessel once again. Gritting her teeth, the mare spun the helm hard, riding against the squall for a second or two, gaining very little traction on the thick crashing of restless water.

A thud beneath the waves echoed lowly amidst the everpresent drone of rain and thunder. Amongst the darkened sky, flashes of lightning lit her vision in brief flashes of contrasted light, dampening her sight of the ever darkening storm.

With a determined roar, the squall sent a crushing crest forwards, sending the magenta alicorn’s vessel careening over the top half of the surge. An upsurge of water from the waves smacking into the starboard side nearly washed her away from the helm. Planting her hooves firmly along the railing of said side, she snarled, holding on with as much strength as her grizzled and fatigued body and mind could force out.

Each swell of waves slammed against the side of the brig, launching cascades of salty, icy water against the limp mare, who by sheer force of will was able to desperately hold onto the railings. Her horn sparked and with a near inaudible groan was she able to force more energy into her telekinesis, lest she completely lose control of the vessel.

Head pounding by the force of the white noise, she was overwhelmed, being sent tumbling around in her mind. Almost by instinct was she able to keep a fragile grip on her consciousness, pushing against the abnormal and unnatural surging of the waves.

It was as if the entire ocean was alive, thrashing around like an enraged beast with no remorse. Merciless and with unrelenting for did it continue to pound away at the ship as well as the alicorn’s mind.

As much as she wanted to fight the current, it swept over the ship in unnatural force, knocking her weakened form against the hard, wooden deck. Strength all but have left her, she simply lie there, listening to the drowning groan of the sea as it prepared to sweep her and the brig underneath the relentless ocean.

She cried silently, the survival instinct that had commanded her to live for this long amongst an empty, dead world escaped her, leaving the alicorn feeling weak and destroyed. Everything she had done, everything she had been forced to endure, all of it quaked in the presence of the monstrous wrath of mother nature.

However the death she had been expecting did not come to pass, the winds that had once been a horrific, swarming gush had slowed considerably. Just as well, the uncontrollable rocking of the vessel by the swelling waves had all but calmed to a gentle flow. Lying on her back, the mare creaked her eyes open, shielding them weakly from the bright glow far above her. Confused, she fully opened her eyes to find not the murky, greenish grey clouds that had all but encompassed her, but the full might of the sun beaming down on her.

Sitting up with a tired groan, the alicorn shook her head dazedly. An almost sickly pale light surrounded her craft, the soaked wood shining in the ghostly sunlight. Looking around, she found herself encompassed on all sides by a wall of looming, enormous clouds, their forms billowing and contorting in what was obviously a furious uproar of wind.

Straight above her, the sun loomed high in the sky, peering down the funneling storm. Right in the eye, that was the lucky break she had found herself in.

Leaning backwards and nearly keeling over, the distressed mare took a deep breath, attempting to compose herself from the unbelievably lucky break. Holding her head in her hooves, she held back tears fighting them off with an obviously increased struggle.

Sitting up with a tired, moaning sigh, the alicorn flared her wings, attempting to shake off the soaked appendages and reduce some of the water weight holding her down. Her ears couldn’t shake the distant, but still fairly evident groan of the storm around her, it’s sound like that of a dying engine.

The note sent shivers down her spine, that and a gut wrenching feeling of foreboding. Casting her eyes to the bow of her ship, she came to the realization that the ordeal of this abnormally strong squall was only half over.

Padding throughout the soaked deck as water sloshed off back into the deep, the mare took hold of the helm, horn lighting up once again. With considerable strain did her telekinetic influence find bits of the rigging, pulling on them in several places to check for inconsistencies and damage.

She could see the wall ever approaching, a solid, looming mass of dark clouds that got closer by the minute. A distance of several tens of kilometers wide away, the wall reminded her of the diminutiveness of her vessel and the impending struggle she would face.

Moving quicker than before, the mare popped the hatches, rapidly inspecting the contents of the upper deck. The inspection showed that everything not bolted down had been overturned and tossed around. Growling softly to herself, the alicorn dashed back to the main deck, not taking the time to correct the decks, for the leviathan approaching cared not for such luxuries.

Horn still lit up, beads of sweat formed on her head, the mare teleported to each of the yards for each sail, testing the durability of the masts and sails themselves. Keeping balance required even more of her concentration while at the same maintaining control of the helm caused her to tire quickly.

Finally finishing her inspections over the next five minutes, the mare hopped back behind the helm, running the full length of the bow, a near twenty-seven meters. Gasping in fatigue, the alicorn flopped down, letting her horn fizzle out. The calm waters did little to jostle the ship, even as the churning wall of clouds moved ever closer, it’s jarring drone echoing in the gentle breeze.

Sighing, the mare rubbed her forehead with haggard hooves. Running the entire ship by herself was quite the task, one that she wouldn’t have had the ability to do without an incredible grasp of multitasking telekinetic movements. Her horn typically hurt at night, an ache that never seemed to fully dissipate. If only she had been able to survive healthier.

Her gaze found the scraggly fur upon her forearms. Memories from long ago flooded her mind, images of a healthier mare, a stronger mare. The breeze brushed past her matted fur, barely ruffling the magenta coat, carrying the familiar scent of salt and rubbery sand.

Closing her tired violet eyes for the briefest of moments, the alicorn wiped the petulant memories from her mind, refusing to allow the damaging thoughts from hurting her further. The past hurt far more than the present now, for she did not wish to be reminded of what was lost. What had been done.

The bones hidden in the hold were more than enough of a reminder of the abominations she had been forced to commit in the name of survival.

When her violet irises were revealed once again, there was no indication of the sorrow and desperation from before, instead hidden behind a glazed mask of callous indifference. The storm was coming and she refused to let the horrors of this endless ocean win, not when breath still entered her lungs would she let the sea defeat her.

Across the calm and gentle eye of the storm, the great wall of chaos approached, it’s voice one of a beckoning, rumbling tone. The calming clash of waves against did little to appease the mare’s churning stomach. Tightening her grip upon the helm, the alicorn kept forward, eyes never leaving the impending hell.

All noise proceeded to fall deaf upon her ears, only the beating of her heart furiously could be heard. Blood pumped in gushes across her body, thudding in her ears. Sweat poured down her faded, bedraggled bangs.

Monsters didn’t stir below the waves like she had been told as a child, no, instead they were a beast of a very different sort, for they emerged atop the great ocean with a clamor and roar no mortal beast could ever hope to produce.

The real monster was that of mother nature, a godly grace with that which the alicorn could scarcely hope to match. A god that approached her with increasing force by the minutes. Despite this, the mare felt her fear leave her, instead replaced by a powerful surge of adrenaline.

The storm was imminent, and by Celestia’s great sun would Twilight survive it.

Below The Sun

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Twilight would have said she was used to the sight before her, one of endless blue, but that would be a lie. In reality, she had since the first day that she had stepped hoof on that ship she had always attempted to force out the truth from her mind. Such an unusual and out of place sight was one she presumed to never adjust to, to never honestly know the feeling of never stepping on solid ground.

Each day passed in a blur, in such a state that one could hardly call it life. Fatigue was a cruel beast that often blurred her line between reality and dream, as her body slowly degraded from the lack of sustenance and the little sleep. If she hadn’t found a way to grow a mediocre amount of nutrient-rich plants she would’ve died long ago, her magically slowed metabolism weakened her body much so. She hadn’t died, that was the only thing she was honestly sure of.

Sometimes she wished she had. She had until the soil grew rotten and lifeless to find another way. A way which might not exist, if she could be honest with herself. The prospect of eating fish had crossed her mind, yet she had an insufficient amount of time to do so.

Water would be an issue once her filtration system collapsed, it’s construction one of desperation and a stroke of luck. Her throat hurt, she hadn’t drunk in so long, for she only did when she must. These days, nothing much could break her haze of dissociation, her mind floating along an equally vast ocean of bleakness.

Apparently, Tartarus wasn’t a burning, hot hell. It was an endless expanse of blue, a mental cage that locked one more mentally than physically. That key had been tossed into the ocean long ago, and now she was forever stuck here, floating along listlessly.

Written across the walls of every deck on the ship was a simple word, scribbled in haphazard, scratchy lettering. Twilight. She couldn’t forget, she dared not find what would happen to her fragile grip on reality if she were to forget her own name, and so it was written, scratched desperately into every single wall.

She did her best not to remember what had been, friends and family. Such memories merely hurt to hold onto and caused her nothing but grief. Perhaps she would see them again, though she knew not if she could face them after the abominations she had committed. Her plants were reasonably recent….

That detested archaic urge to eat, a plaguing sickness she could not refute. Something errant that moment of weakness owned, and she caught herself gnawing bones.

The alicorn shivered, casting those wretched memories from her mind once more, ignoring the sound of crunching flesh and snapping of bones and muscle. Her stomach heaved, though she dare not puke lest she lose the small amount of energy in her system.

Windy was the temperament of the sea this day, it’s growling gurgle blowing over the deck and into her ears. The depths of the ocean had been moved, pushing the surface in molecular motions. Twilight kept her grip on the helm taut, letting it no move an inch to starboard or port.

As the swelling waves died down, replaced by the gentle movement of the sea below, she finally relinquished her tight grip on the wheel, letting it turn slightly in the light breeze. Snapping a crank just to the left of the oak, she stepped away from the helm, content with the locked state of the rudder.

The sea was calm, and so was she.

Steeping away, she gazed over the stern, admiring the white slush the rudder carved into the waves. All the horizon was encompassed by blue, murky and still. Such a sight had first been haunting; now she merely knew nothing else. The sea had become her, and her it.

Horn glowing sharply for the briefest of moments, a quick sheen enveloped the bottom hull of the ship, an applied layer of anti-fouling appearing across the dull colored steel. Gasping in brief pain, she cut off the flow of energy, her coating costing a substantial amount of her damaged horn’s limiting output.

She glanced down towards the frothy foam from the frantic swath below, eyeing the swirling water.

Her gaze lingered below, her own reflection easy visible, a haunting image that appeared far more evident than it should have been. The face that stared back at her was hardly recognizable, the image that of a sunken pair of fierce violet eyes, dulled by the faded lavender fur and matted indigo bangs, messy and unkempt with faint traces of dried blood.

The horn poking from between that set of dirty, unwashed hair showed it’s age. Bits of alicorn was chipped away, scar tissue pulsing beneath the hard surface of the fixture. Maybe in another life, the appearance may have shocked her into action, but that life was in the past.

She could feel the grime writhe beneath her crusty fur, a sensation almost like that of ants, crawling, chewing on her shriveled and unkempt flesh. The mare broke her stare swiftly, finding the image unbearable, instead of resigning herself to the leviathan ahead, that endless, dark sea.

Fog stuck to the horizon like a tick, sucking away the holy sunlight and shrouding the ocean in a permanent haze that clung to the far reaches of the sea, clumps of gloomy grey clouds pushing further down upon the plain.

It had become hard to imagine how this used to look, when land still reigned over her sight, a dynamic landscape of greens and browns, now taken over by this endless, flat carpet of azure. The world was blue, all of it blue. Everything, just the sea.

She was alone, the lone sailor of this world, an empty ocean, far too large for just her lonesome, yet she knew it was how it would remain. All hope of this nightmare being only that had been shot clean long, long ago. No dream, no ordeal would ever last this long.

The alicorn knew not how long it had honestly been; the world before had faded into nothing but a lurid collective dream, one she had come to accept she would never wake from. Days had blended into months, months into years. It had been so long. She could hardly remember their faces anymore.

Friends and family were that of a distant dream, nothing but this endless, wretched sea remained. Her companion silence, her ally solitude, her soul shared in isolation. Memories of the time before floated by her scarred mind every so often, pushing in an old smell or an image in crystal clear focus. Such colorful pictures were almost too vibrant to handle, causing headaches the likes of which she hadn’t begun to imagine.

Nothing remained but the creaking of wood, the crashing of waves, and the occasional storm of water, filling up the globe even more. It had come from the sky, filling her world with water and chaos, Twilight had not known how.

Stepping away lightly, she trudged along the deck, tail limply trailing against the wood, it’s texture matted and dirty with grime and dried red. The luxury of a shower had been given up long before now, she hardly even thought about such things anymore.

Thirst clawed at her throat, a dry cough escaping her throat. Dispelling the sudden dizziness, she clambered down the deck, throwing open a hatch and stumbling down the stairs. The chamber below was dark, lit only by the dim light from outside.

The wood creaked below her hooves, her limited weight not harming the thick, dense planks as she walked, trudged into a separate room at the stern. Her quarters, a place seldom visited, not even to sleep. She didn’t want to remain in that haunted room; darkness dwelled there.

Inside the room was an uncharacteristic lack of tidiness, large scraps of goatskin, faded and blank stretched across the table, various instruments sitting atop it, dust collected upon both. How useless a map was when everything looked the same. Twilight was tempted to laugh at the bitter irony of that, yet she did not.

Her sense of humor had long since left. Only survival remained now, a trance that encompassed every waking moment and vanished only briefly in her uneasy slumber. Twilight’s gaze meandered out the window as she plunked herself into the torn fabric of her chair, spinning it around to face the outside.

Everything was extraordinarily still today, the plain of blue unmoving and the sky above blank as a white sheet. Nothing moved, nothing lived. Wind barely caught her sails, even at full mast, the vessel hardly moved.

Had she been in greater straits of awareness, she would have noticed a peculiar movement below the waves, just under the hull of her ship. It was the most gentle of rocking, her chair tipping only slightly to the right.

However, she had retreated into her mind minutes before, the alicorn’s gaze drawn blankly across the horizon, the sun a permanent fixture in the sky. Oh how she longed to see her namesake once more, this sun was unholy.

Darkness never fell, the sun a fixture in the sky where it had been once the world ended. Luck was her only companion, everyone and everything else being swept away in the maelstrom, one she could not wholly recall.

From the trench, a call echoed out, bounding up through the waves and into her ears, a note of condemnation, anger, of rage. The alicorn shivered, not with terror, but with fury.

It was here, the blasphemous, foul wretch that had sunk the world in waves. From the sky, the rains had come, beckoned by the monster in white, the horror from within the darkest trench, the most profound dwelling on the planet.

The Whale.

Without warning, Twilight grinned, smiling at the monster, silent and deep. That time she felt it, the ghost of the deep, that whale. Once again, it sunk below the ship, turning it ever so slightly. Twilight did not move, only smiling toothily at the blue. It had come, yet she did not quake in fear, nor did she tremble in anger.

Intense vibrations resounded from down below, drowning the gentle cresting of waves in an immense storm of unearthly, baritone gurgling growls. Twilight felt the boat shift, pushed from down under by the mighty beast. One may be led to believe it would flip her ship, to condemn her to the cavern of doom inside this mighty sea, yet that would be foolish.

Twilight had come to know that if she had been thought dead, it would have ended long ago, yet now the only cause for existence was this battle, this force of wills between the two. One of the land, one of the ocean.

The boat tipped, yet did not capsize. How was this her prison, the life she had been left in? It did not want her death; it wanted her suffering, her soul. White as the palest ivory, spotted with the blackest of onyx, the whale remained, haunting her waking dreams with formidable anger. For what else could exist to fulfill such a vile purpose as vengeance?

Rage had overtaken this world of peace, drowning it in a tidal wave of twisted darkness, roiling from the sky and passing land and sea alive. Waters of chaos, such an ocean that could not be comprehended by mere beings of flesh. It existed below the sea. Below the sun.

Her lifeless eyes were forever fixed outwards, hatred immortal, at that grinning, ghostly whale. No matter how many times her soul had been drowned, drenched in the emotions of the whale, the body had remained, her fragile grip on sanity proving rather hard to break. Vengeance gave her strength, the ability to outlast the demon’s malice, the power to shake free of madness. Her body may have weakened, pushed to unnatural degrees of living, but her arcane presence had grown, powered by brief periods of insanity, only to swell back from the brink.

Once again did it crash against the hull, quaking the steel and wooden superstructure above, yet despite this, Twilight gave it nary a flinch, only further staring outwards, further down the horizon. Shaking the walls with it’s rumbling, baritone call, the whale sunk underneath the hull, without another sound.

Replacing the unearthly noises was the faint clacking of dusty metal vibrating against the thick wooden walls. The vessel swayed harder than just the mere waves would cause, stilling as the whale vanished.

The rolling depths of the ocean swallowed it once more, the phantom fading down, into the sea. Twilight turned her gaze from the sun, feeling it vanish, the call of the beast rumbling the wooden hull of the vessel, shaking her soul forever.

It fell, the great shepherd of waves, mixed with a million shades of shadow and white, restless and massive. Alicorn and Whale, nothing else.

Deeper, deeper, the Ghost of the Sea. Deep.

…………………………………………….

This ship is cursed, and so was she. Her back was stuck to the deck, her eyes listlessly staring up into the expanse of dirty grey and green. The sun above glowed in an unholy way, rays of light filtering through the clouds above, glaring down upon the still alicorn.

Twilight didn’t blink, she didn’t breathe. All that could be done was stare. Stare at the sun.

Hunger clawed at her chest, ripping along her stomach with a vengeance. Twilight grunted but did not budge. A ruthless unscrupulousness ravaged her mind, sending sticky red paint along her fur, staining her jawline and muzzle.

Images fluttered through the haze, sending minuscule tremors under her fur and skin, heart hammering away beneath a battered and bruised rib-cage. Hooves marked with age and famine clawed at the unforgiving deck, not finding purchase as she drifted along.

Underneath the unbreakable catatonia, the waves sloshed against the side of her vessel, gently meandering upon the ocean, sails were drawn tight and pulled. Eyes so vast yet so unmistakably vacant and lost, drifted away from the glow, finding purchase against the pale skin of a book.

What a simple thing, that of a book. Ink and paper, so unassuming yet masking turmoil and anguish that would break a mind, a being far more complicated than mere paper and pen.

Dusty and old, it laid on the faded deck, the dark brown oak a sharp contrast to the bright red of the book’s cover. Not a hint of its blood-red hue had wasted away with time, remaining as ever presently bright as the day it had come to rest on her desk.

Twilight did not reach for it, her eyes remaining fixed to the transparent cover, sharp as a tack, yet blank as a sheet. Sweat drew a line down her fur, the perspiring liquid seeping into her skin, an itch arising, one she refused to scratch, instead focusing on that cursed cover.

Silence reigned, yet her compulsion to flip through those blighted pages continually grew within, an uncontrollable curiosity that harkened back to the mare she had been. Hooves quivered against splintered boards.

Twilight was suddenly acutely aware of the fluttering of sails, the sloshing of waves, the dull shriek of the gales. Gulping hard, she pushed herself upright with shaking arms, lip quivering and eyes glistening. Unsteadily she gripped the book with her ragged hooves, not trusting her magic with the accursed tome.

Whimpering lowly, the broken alicorn carefully and tentatively undid the primitive metal latch holding the text shut, the clacking of weak metal pounding against her eardrums unnaturally. Breath coming in short bursts, Twilight weakly flipped to the first page.

Initially, her eyes merely gazed upon the full black letting, mind not grasping the elaborate inscriptions after the eternity it had been since she had seen such. Eyes flickering absent mindedly, every sensation became incredibly enhanced.

Suddenly the deck pricked against every hair that touched it, stinging like fire ants and burning her flesh. Wind buckled against the masts, shaking splinters loose, the fragments crashing into the space around her. Twinges of agony laced through her hearing, the overwhelming brine collapsing her ears. She hardly acknowledged the pain, eyes glued to the words on the page.

“I never expected to be a sailor.” Lost in this liquid desert, she remained, unyielding to death.

Twilight’s concentration broke forcefully, shattered like windows in a great storm, fragments slamming into the earth with the tremor of a cannon. The mare collapsed backward, breath heaving in her chest as she fought back haunting memories, demons she had long since buried down in that book, that wretched, vile book.

The mare shivered, eyes crawling shut as her heart hammered away in her chest. Twilight was tempted to cry, yet no tears fell. Cringing powerfully, she attempted to shut out the agonizing recollections, to stem the tide of emotion rising within her, however, she could not control this river, it's rage untapped and unquenchable.

Erupting from within her like a geyser, the memories burst forth across her vision, sending the alicorn reeling over, spine spanning taut and wings fanning out. Twilight screamed her throat hoarse, body seizing up and spasming in a fit of agonized motion, bumbling, mumbling torrents of words spiraling out of her mouth in an unintelligible frenzy.

"Twilight, where are we?" The voice was scratchy, uncharacteristic fear in its boyishly feminine tone. It was washed away in a jumble of voices and chaotic cries. Waves slammed against the hull, pushing her off balance, yet she made no indication of this. “I don’t want this, do you?!” The voice nearly cried, sobs escaping it weakly, before fading out. It was harsher, more desperate than the first question.

Twilight choked on a breath, voice squealing quietly, horrid sensations racing across virtually every muscle of her battered body. The alicorn grit her teeth, violently gnashing them together as she rubbed her hooves against her skull.

Voices, distinct, from the first cried, yet did not answer. The first voice merely sobbed, the sound of scampering wood echoing across the sea. The sounds of swell gradually succumbed, falling to the unsightly sobs and pleads of this haunting vision.

Magic clapped against her ship, acting on its own as it’s owner panicked and writhed along the deck, screaming out hoarsely with all the might her throat could muster. The wind took leave of the sails, spinning the ship around and back, pushing against every swell in the sea.

Crying weakly, she curled into the fetal position. The voice screamed in her head, guttural and terrified, before being violently cut off. Her stomach heaved, muscles spasming in revulsion.

The book slid, clipping against her fur. She screamed, guttural and maddening. A spark of magic escaped the tip of the alicorn’s horn, slamming the book shut, the voices ceasing along with it. Twilight breathed hard, falling down and shaking.

The sun stared back once more, this time through a haze of clouds, painting the world a dark and murky combination of grey and mud. Twilight’s hooves had gouged marks into the deck, deep. Her hooves ached, however, her ears and brain throbbed so much worse.

Just in the very back of her mind, she could feel it. Awakened like a starving beast, eager to devour whatever lay nearby. Twilight listened, the sounds of ocean overwhelming her as they had once done.

Dense, bone-like protrusions flashed in her vision, colored in splashes of red and gray. A flash of steel, lanced through the vision and into her head, spearing the train of thought and sending the alicorn sprawling, lifeless, listlessly staring ahead.

Famine surged, madness quaked. Muscles buckled, bodies shake.

Hunger ravaged. Hungry, oh, so hungry….

Further South

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Fog. Endless fog, stretching on over and across the horizon in every direction imaginable. Above and below the sea, the mist was everywhere, obscuring her vision to mere feet in front of the alicorn.

Despite the blindness, she moved onward, sails carrying her further south, further into oblivion and deeper into torment and grief. The mare stared at the scratchy writing in front of her, tracing the curve of each frantically scrabbled and etched letter with a sort of disconnected, half present gaze.

Was she Twilight? Or was Twilight her?

She had forgotten what the case may be, finally realized that the grimness of identity was the last thing to go upon this foggy ocean bare, naked and alone. Twilight was not afraid, not that the oblivion had finally swallowed all in it’s massive embrace, if the end had come, she would welcome it with open arms.

A question had popped into her mind out of nowhere once before, the realization that one had before their end came, the sort of understanding that only the cold claws of death could inspire in a being.

After every hell came yet another chasm, yet another gulf to stumble into. Where did it end?

Each letter, jagged and rough as they were, carried a depth of weight and power that found an unusual way to shake the mare’s iron soul to it’s very foundations. The very little solace she could find was in her old way, in the form of books and letters from the destroyed past of her home.

She cast her weary eyes away from the letters, finding solace in the horizon. It was always there, watching, waiting. Though she could not hear it, smell it, or see it, she knew it lingered there, just on the edge of her senses, pursuing her at every turn towards that great blue.

The edges of her vessel had worn thin, time had shattered the masts into splinters once before, only to be brought back frantically and desperately.

Sometimes she could feel the being’s great call shake her boat. Sometimes she could feel herself brought back from the depths by that majestic note. It was torture.

Driving through a fog, she knew no respite, no safe haven from the embrace of the sea. Everything was so grey. Why did it continue? Why did she never sleep?

Aeons had elapsed in the blink of an eye, yet she did not age and never did she sleep. How much time had passed and how much more would pass before the cycle closed and everything ended. She had the barest of memories, a memory of forests and towns, of castles and cities, monoliths of stone and steel, rendered still like the weakest of branches.

She wanted to sleep, yet why was she so afraid to do so?

Perhaps it was because she knew she was already sleeping, that such a trial would finally wake her up to the real world and destroy her fragile sense of reality like light snow in a windstorm.

Over the course of time, the stars had begun to yield to her the answers, the memories locked far away in her subconscious, the waking dream that she lived revealing some of the secrets to this solitude.

Inside the memories of her past were images, fragments of words and sights like scraps of pages torn from a book; the pieces there, yet so hard to puzzle together and make sense of.

It hurt her head to think about, to remember where the life had ended and the dream had begun, yet there wasn’t much else to do aboard this endless journey. Her body felt like it had aged hundreds of years, her stomach and throat parched and empty, yet she did not die.

Scraps of meat, pieces of flesh torn from the only one that could give such substance, the source of her increased life-span, yet the source of her torment. Purgatory had let her feast upon her own flesh and drink the liquid of her veins, yet she did not die.

Why had this become so? Why had she been disallowed to finally pass? What was her one crime? These questions came often, especially for one such as her, an individual with nothing but time to waste and thoughts to contemplate.

It was odd, for now, the thought of returning home was a foreign one, the idea of dying one equally terrifying. This conflicted her, as she wanted so bad for the pain to end, but Twilight knew now that the afterlife could not exist, and such the void awaited her.

If this was purgatory and she was meant for some destination, she had the feeling it would never come. Maybe it wasn’t meant to?

An answer did not come easily, slipping through her mind without a stopping point. Her heart pounded inside her chest, the tired organ not ceasing in it’s race. She grasped at her breast with a gasp, digging beneath the fur and feeling the heavy beat beneath the skin.

Sitting back on her haunches, she held her breath, counting back from ten. An old method, one that she remembered more from muscle memory than conscious thought.

The mare sat up, walking unsteadily to the edge of the deck, a biting chill penetrating her fur and sinking deep into her bones. Ice drifted by in the motionless waters, floating by peacefully. Twilight was momentarily struck, caught completely off guard by the foreign sight.

Ice, a substance that never formed, for as long as she could remember, that had never been something of a sight. The temperature hardly changed, no matter where she drifted. The south and the north, east and the west, these were concepts that held no bearing in a world of endless ocean, of one where the sun never rose and never set.

But for ice to form, that meant she had found something, something different.

This was new.

More chunks of ice floated by, appearing in the misty haze like ghosts, floating by the vessel slowly and with a subtle grace she had not seen in ages. The view of something other than her own ship cruising through the water was a completely foreign sight.

Grey pieces of ice, hazy and misty, the kind of ice that had seemingly never been unfrozen. Grey mist and grey ice, a new selection of monotony, one she had not happened by before. A slab bounced against the hull, a resounding thud echoing across the empty soundscape. It was far too quiet.

This was real.

Uncertainty seeped into her body, shaking her legs and widening her eyes. Two very different emotions conflicted inside her core, one of terror and glee. Grey and grey and grey.

Foggy and cloudy was the world and now, now this. What was this?

How much further had she drifted into insanity? Further south, further south. Her mind spiraled, terror and uncertain obscurity clouding her once rational brain. She began to truly question her sanity, the one thing she had clung to like a stubborn cough, refusing to let this hell claim her.

Had she now truly gone mad? Yet another question to add to the pile, a seemingly limitless one by this point.

Appearing in the fog, the land stretched for miles, the barren fields of ice endless and haunting. Pernicious solitude had destroyed her thought of hope and now up ahead this foreboding ice snapped her mind like a retracting rubberband.

Her boat clipped the side of a particularly large piece of ice lightly, sending the ship on the slightest of teeters. This quickly shook the shellshocked mare back to her senses. The earth had gone horribly quiet, the sloshing of waves and the whistle of wind mysteriously absent.

Twilight looked over the great expanse of pale, glowing ice and snow with barely constrained emotion, chest rapidly rising up and down. Her hollow eyes had almost forgotten what such a sight looked like, the solidity of ground, the wholeness, and absolution of a solid piece of stone or rock to step upon.

Her vessel sailed through the snowy waters, forward towards either damnation or salvation, the choice of which she could not be certain. As the Antarctic waters drifted ever near, she could make out the subtle details of the barren landscape as it unraveled farther into the distance, the blank sheets of ice a near white sheet across the entire world.

Shakily, the mare took a glance over her shoulder, eyeing the waters to her rear disappearing into the fog, vanishing from sight. With a hard gulp and a shuddering breath, Twilight found her gaze surprisingly hard to break.

As much as she hated that ocean, that horribly wretched expanse of water, she found herself feeling oddly afraid to leave it. It seemed that she needed the ocean just as much as she craved to distance herself from it.

Peeling her eyes away from the rapidly disappearing expanse of water, the alicorn turned her haggard eyes to the gently approaching sheet of white as it consumed her vision, eyeing the numerous diverse hills and crags that just barely shone in the low light.

This was the south, this was where the giant slept, the monster of ice and snow. Had she found her land or had the land found her? Further south, further south she had drifted.

Around her, the ice encompassed all, the large bay holding her vessel in it’s gargantuan size, making her modest vessel look like a canoe by comparison. All around was the ice, closing off the ocean behind her as it gradually disappeared from sight.

The ship slowed as it approached the banks of the shallow bay shores. The icy banks breached water just a few hundred feet up ahead. She suddenly understood the drastic change she had experienced, and with a disgruntled noise from deep within her throat, the mare charged down the deck, horn glowing as she pulled a release valve at the bow of the ship.

Although the valve was degraded and covered in mold from disuse, the gears cranked loudly, turning and loosening the anchor. With a heave of magical force, the anchor plummeted over the front of the vessel. Thankfully the wind was already pushing against her, giving the anchor plenty of time to gather resistance as it dragged across the seabed a few moments later.

Besides the mighty splash as the anchor slammed into the frigid waters, she could only hear the clanking of the chains as the anchor descended. It only took mere moments before the chains slowed, signifying the base of the seabed being reached.

Breathing raggedly as the ship began to lose speed, just in time before the shallows beached her, the alicorn sat back, wiping a cold sweat from her forehead. With the adrenaline pumping furiously through her veins, Twilight had yet to notice the bite of the frigid winds.

The slightest tugging sensation upon the hull was the only indication the mare had or needed for that matter, to know that her line was secure. Content with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be dragged to shore by currents or wind, Twilight quickly looked over the bow.

Her calm demeanor faltered slightly in the wake of the massive looming unknown. She choked on a breath momentarily.

Creaking ominously in the silent, still air, the boat stopped. Twilight became aware of this. She became painfully aware of this.

The land before her called hauntingly out to her, the dark ambiance of the bright field of ice wildly contrasting each other and making her mind race with images of the horrors that lay waiting in the wastelands.

Placing her shaking hooves over the guard rails, she could only stare over the fog and into the white expanse, watching the shallow waves lap at the shore, rippling puddles of water freezing and melting along the banks.

Everything was silent, all but the high pitched whistle of the wind among the sails and across the bulk yards, moving between wood and steel and flesh with grace only the like of mother nature. Twilight was made absentmindedly aware of the turmoil below, the waves pattering incessantly against the sides of the hull, splattering against with audible thuds.

Ice filled winds blew over her body, sending a chill down her spine. A coat, she needed a coat.

Nodding stupidly at the voice in her head, Twilight backed away shakily from the deck, nearly tripping over herself as she sought shelter beneath the lower layers of the ship’s hull. It was hardly warm, yet the slight insulation from the biting atmosphere outside was a far cry of comfort.

Shaking and quivering in anticipation and immense trepidation, Twilight raced over to a faded and dusty cabinet resting in the middle of the cargo hold. It creaked open with the sound of nearly snapping oak, causing the mare to wince slightly.

She sifted through the tattered clothing and pushed around a number of articles of clothing she knew were not hers. Faded memories of white and purple pushed through the ever-present haze, making the alicorn groan and shake her head harshly.

Pulling a thick gown from within the confines of the cabinet, eyes clenched shut, the mare slammed the cabinet closed, forcing the lock shut with enough forces to make the metal squeal. Never again.

With a grimace and a quick tightening of the straps around her ragged and somewhat emaciated form, the alicorn mare trudged back up the deck, taking a haggard breath of the vile air above. It smelled far to bland, missing the salty drench of the sea that she had become so accustomed to.

The freshness of the air was rancid, a plague upon her senses that threatened to make her sick. Clouds of a snowy whiteness hung low in the air above, far too low, far too opaque.

Snow danced in the air around her, falling slowly and without care. It was a sight Twilight never thought she would see again. Tears formed in her eyes, heart quivering with emotion as a tidal wave of memories rushed to the surface. Memories of smoky fires and cozy homes, of laughter and smiles, and of warm drinks and warmer blankets.

Tears fell from her cheeks, staining the deck. Oh, how she would give anything to get it back! All she wanted was her friends back, all she wanted was her life back. Twilight fell to the deck, haggard, ruined body collapsing to the floor like a cut doll, clasping her head in her hooves, openly sobbing, chest heaving and matted tail hugging her legs.

She missed home. She missed her warm bed. She missed her son, her innocent baby dragon.

But he was dead. Just like the rest of them, just like everything else in this world, dead and gone, buried beneath thousands of feet of water and tears.

Twilight went limp, her eyes pouring as strength left her and she was unable to do anything besides lay there and cry. She truly had pondered just throwing herself over the deck, to succumb to the ocean’s torment, to drown her life away and to finally be free. She had been terrified it wouldn’t work.

She had been terrified that it would.

From the mist, a voice whispered into her ear, and a phantom claw gripped her shoulder softly. Her head shot up, yet as expected, nothing. Nothing but this ghostly ship, surrounded by fog and snow. She wanted to cry, to sob and scream and bellow in rage and despair. She wanted to die, she wanted to see her family again, to feel the warmth and laughter of her friends. She wanted this to end.

She knew it never would.

But that voice, it’s warm, tender presence had sent shivers down her spine, the voice of a lost child, forgotten by everything but her. Oh, how she loathed remembering what had been, it tore her heart and soul apart, yet this snow awakened the worst in her.

Lifting her head from the floor, rising unsteadily on shaking limbs, the mare gave a quick glance back into the mist. She had heard him. She had felt him. He was gone, but the feeling of a child’s love was unyielding.

It was all she needed.

Though her stomach was turning in knots and her breath heaved in and out of her chest, the mare felt that delaying this would only prolong her torment, only extend the breadth of her suffering. She had always asked the world, screamed to the skies her need for answers, bellowed to the heavens her submission to salvation, yet it had never come.

It seemed the world was finally ready to give her the answer she so desperately sought. Down in the frigid heart of the world, hidden and fog and nestled in snow and famine, she had traveled, ventured deeper than she had ever dreamt imaginable.

Whatever this was, she was ready. Whatever was in store, she would face it. Her crippled mind and battered body were still pumping, and for now, that was all the reassurance she needed. It was time, time to face what would come.

Tripped and stumbled, pushed further, further from herself, further into oblivion, further down. Further south.
-------------------------

The Glacial Sermon

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Among the shattered remains of icy glaciers and collapsing pillars of snow and white laid it’s majesty. Highlighted in the shadows laid by the sun, streaks of black covered crevices and cracks within the icy surface. If not for the sun’s winding grasp, the sheet of white would have appeared to be flat, blankless, when in reality caves and snags, hooks and bends burrowing under the surface scarred the landscape along the endless sheet.

Twilight’s hooves trembled in the fluffy snow, her thin form trudging through the heavy grasp of icy particles. Gasping lowly, head burrowed under her hooded cloak, the breaths she breathed shallow and painful under her ribs. Numbing air bit at her face, eyes watering in pain and anger, each passing moment fueling a larger fire within her stomach.

The mare’s horn glimmered weakly, a spell as bright as the snow below encasing her for the barest of seconds. A wave of heat pushed into her bones, pressed and shoved deep within by the razor-sharp winds. Above, the sky pulsed strangely, contorting and whipping in spectacularly bizarre motions, angrily pummeling the ground below with a righteous fervor.

Clumps of snow crept along the edges of her thick coat, dragging her weight and further offsetting the starved mare, effectively trapping her inside her own clothing. A sudden chill racked her spine, eliciting a muffled groan from the Alicorn, as well as violent shake, racing up her body and through her wings.

Lifting her eyes weakly from the monotone white ground, the mare scanned the terrain as far as her half-lidded eyes could reach. Not the barest hint of change was present even out to the horizon, nothing but these pale, ghostly plains of ice and snow. A low, hideous rumbling emerged from the writhing storm above, snowfall, vibrating in the air.

The immense call of thunder did nothing but rattle the frazzled mare, even more, her sharp, chipped horn alit with furious energy. Lighting split the skies, drawing her vision in pale, eerie blue light. It was within that grueling, furious din of thunder and pale lightning, that her weary vision made out the slightest of humps in the plains.

Twilight’s ever-sharp mind immediately kicked into action, gears cranking inside the beaten mare’s skull. Even the slightest on breaks in the snow indicated something different, something to go off of, anything to break the monotony. Pushing forward against the howling winds, Twilight sloshed through the slush, horn glowing brighter.

Straining her hooves in the air, the mare conjured a bubble of pure violet light, it’s strong humming surface, reflecting the blizzard and stemming the wind. With a sharp cry of happiness, the mare flared her unkempt wings, pushing off the ground several feet.

The effort on her damaged and unmaintained wings and feathers created a nearly herculean effort just to lift a few feet. Panting as a sudden sweat broke across her coat, the mangled Alicorn pushed through the pain and suffering with nothing but willpower and a unexpected, furious rage.

From the slight avenue of sight she was afforded, the hill easily gave way to a dipping cliffside, with only the pale blue light shining down from above every few seconds letting her make out the slightest curves in the snow.

As the Antarctic wasteland played her game of bloody dice, Twilight pushed forward, teeth gritted and brows furrowed tightly. A roiling, heated feeling of nausea swept over her stomach, the strain of flight causing her insides to react poorly.

Bringing a tattered and matted hoof to her muzzle, she kept the heaving at bay, mind solely focused on the possibility of shelter from this storm. It would only be temporary.

It rained for centuries on the ocean. The snow would not be stopping.

With a weak gasp, Twilight’s wings suddenly locked, sending her reeling forward. A startled whimper barely managed to escape her before she plowed right back into the snow, the momentum from her flight sending her careening off the rapidly approaching cliffside.

The fall wasn’t too far, yet it felt like minutes had passed in the meantime. Twilight’s bubble disbanded with a sound akin to shattering glass, the spell matrix rapidly deteriorating under the strain. Fifteen feet closed quickly, Twilight slamming into the hard-packed snow with force.

A strangled scream, wretched and wet, wrenched forward, the sound of a sickly snapping filling the air before being quickly swept away into the winds of mayhem. The mare laid there for several moments, chest heaving up and down.

Sharp raw, burning hot pain pulsed from her right wing. The pain burned straight through her, the full force of her weight lying on the appendage, yet she couldn’t move. Not while the thunder ravaged the heavens above.

In that nightmarish haven above, she could hear it. A mournful, echoing call spewing forth from the clouds like a spring rain, the sound reverberating within her head over and over. Breathing weakly, the storm fell away from her sense. Everything fell around her.

Only the whale remained. Only the whale. At the end, it would be there. At the beginning, it would be there.

Life flooded through her and Twilight shot to her hooves with a strangled gasp, shaking the building snow from her body. Her manic eyes, met the wing at her side, dragging limply, the pain shooting up her shoulder almost immediately.

The mare pushed a hoof into her mouth, horn lighting up dimly.

Her teeth punctured flesh, a blood-curdling scream of agony ripping out of the mare’s throat as the wing in question pulled up against her coat, Twilight could only moan in pain as she began to frantically rush towards the mouth of the cliffside. A shallow dip in the whitewashed rock wall showed a tiny opening about the size of two of her.

Gnashing her teeth and pushing the bleeding hoof forwards, the mare dragged her body against the snowfall, pushing with the last reserves of dwindling strength and willpower. Her body nearly gave out the second she was given reprieve of the blizzard, her body slumping against the opening as she carefully squeezed her way inside.

An unnatural darkness seemed to reside inside, her vision limited to a foot or two in front of her. Ducking her head, the mare was forced nearly onto her belly, crawling along the ice cold ground. The chipped and jagged pebbles along the floor scraped against her hide, however, Twilight hardly felt it against the agonizing burning of her wing.

Pumping a small number of her reserves, the mare shakily attempted to illuminate the tiny crawl space ahead. Fear of many things pushed at the barriers of her mind, many of which she did her best to not entertain. Despite the fear of the chamber collapsing on top of her, not to mention a few other unnatural and terrifying possibilities, Twilight felt a compulsion take over her, giving her no choice but to proceed.

The dip into the cave was steep, and Twilight quickly lost her balance, tripping over her own hooves and falling down the steep incline. She tumbled without sound, lacerations being torn into her by jagged icicles stuck to the floor like a stubborn child.

Laying at the bottom of the fall, the mare groaned weakly, a sweat breaking across her brow and the cold shivers spiking with fervor from pain and stress. As it was trained to do, her mind quickly displaced itself once the pain started to grow more intense, her horn lighting up automatically as she shakily pushed herself to her hooves.

With a dull plaster shining in her eyes, Twilight warily scanned the inside of the dark cave. Hardly a shade of light shone within, merely the dim glimmer from outside illuminating a slight shade of the hill she found herself at the base of.

Something about seeing this darkness set off alarms inside her own head, the absence of night being a near constant in this purgatory for Celestia knows how long had left the mare with a striking unfamiliarity with the lack of light. Limbs shaking slightly from fear, Twilight took a few steps forward, a dim light blinking into her own and illuminating the area directly around her for three or four feet, just enough to see.

With distress, something odd happened. Any further light she attempted to force into the chamber just vanished into the foggy darkness around her as if the light itself was being sucked out of the air. Her mouth hung open, dry and gasping.

Groaning, Twilight channeled the energy harder, opening more pathways for the spell matrix to flow through, yet no matter the complexity, no matter the source, no matter the strength of energy, the light fizzled away, sucked into the unknown depths of the cave.

Swallowing hard, Twilight stood dead still in the center of the chamber, eyes frantically whirling around. Shadows danced around on the edge of sight, surrounding her and pulsing in waves, held back only by the dim, flickering light of her horn, shining in the dark, a beacon like a star against the dark.

Or a lighthouse for those within it.

Flicking her long bangs from her eyes, Twilight slowly moved to the edge of the chamber, laying a hoof against it and tracing the fetlock along the drying cracks. An idea came to mind, one that she immediately set into motion.

Spurred on by the action, the thrill of a mystery to solve, one to see through, the mare quickly followed the wall, hugging close as she followed it’s pathing. Starting from the point where the entrance, it’s hazy light that of a point of reference, she followed the wall all the way around, careful to note every dip within it’s surface.

Fighting to ignore the biting cold digging into her body within this dark, damp chamber, Twilight kept her still hazy mind focused on the task at hand. She did her best to ignore the slick streaks of cold blood dripping down her back, not giving mind to the gentle sounds it made as it feel to the icy floor below.

With careful, practiced motions, the mare outlined the walls, the glow from her horn giving her just the barest notice of the land around her before it vanished into the trembling void suffocating the majority of the chamber.

As she began to loop almost back around to the entrance to the cave, a dip in the wall ahead showed itself. Heart pumping faster at the sight, a chilly smile began to cover over her muzzle, the motions feeling almost alien by this point.

Rushing over, she slid to a stop just before it, peeking into the shallow dip with caution. Her analytical gaze quickly noted the similarities it showed with the cave entrance she had stumbled upon before.

The fiery ache in her back was enough to remind her that this time a stricter level of caution would be wise. They would not be so lucky again.

Pushing her head into the dip, it appeared that the drop was just as steep if not steeper than the first. A gulp forced itself down her throat, Twilight eyes becoming slightly glossy as fear welled up to replace her brief spike of happiness.

Casting her eyes back to the first dip she had fallen into, she felt an odd sensation overwhelm her. Looking back at that tight, narrow entrance into the unknown cave, this dredging darkness, it made her composure falter. The hazy, saturated light that dwelled from outside had been hellish, but that was all she had known.

She hated it, but at the same time, she could hardly bear to part from it. Like a dying, old friend, it tortured her by both being alive and not quite dead yet. Better the hell she knew than the one she didn’t.

It took an actual effort to rip her eyes from the light at the top of the tunnel, but as she gazed further down the burrowing pathway downwards into the earth, Twilight felt an odd compulsion willing her downwards, further into this odd cave, this unbearable darkness.

A tear welled up in her eye and slid down her face silently.

With a grunt, she forced herself into the hole, sliding down the black pit as the light in her horn vanished, the matrix collapsing as she lost focus. The slide down into the deeper section of the cave was not as uncontrolled as the first. Just barely.

Twilight noticed almost immediately that she was sliding, far, far longer than before. Panic flooded into her veins as the possibility of the incline suddenly breaking off and sending her plummeting into an endless abyss. With careful focus, the alicorn pushed those thoughts back, immediately putting together the spell matrix and relighting her surroundings.

As soon as the matrix was functioning and the meager light was restored, the incline flattened out, sending the mare sliding on the hard ground with a constrained grunt. Moaning weakly, and muttering a few weak curses, Twilight quickly and rather ungracefully got back to her hooves.

The darkness remained, this time, seemingly more intense. Eyes hiding low under her brow, Twilight fought to keep the matrix alive, finding it much more difficult this time. While the darkness from before was impenetrable, this, this was something else.

It was colder down here, much colder. The very fringes of her fur grew stiff, hardly able to handle the pervasive cold. Twilight was starting to sorely wish her coat hadn’t been lost in that storm from the surface.

The matrix struggled under the weight of something. Twilight could feel it, a pressure, it’s energy focused on her head, attempting to snuff out the life whirling through her veins and blood and up into her brain.

This darkness was malicious, alive in it’s very own manner, unpleased and uncomfortable with the bastion of light standing alive and bright in the middle of it’s territory. Despite the terror threatening to sweep her off her hooves, Twilight remained steadfast.

Her brain had been comatose for so long, drowned underneath the weight of water, an entire ocean full of it, the life on that ship being one of forced obedience, nothing to stimulate her naturally active mind.

But now, now….

Now she had something to focus on.

A coil of magical energies began to pool around her, something stirring within, not entirely awake, but no longer held under.

Gritting her teeth, Twilight felt the pounding pressure bubbling in her skull, vile and primordial, it threatened to take her over any second now. Opening her eyes just a tad, Twilight view had been reduced to a meager two feet.

With a gasping, uneven breath, Twilight funneled as much of her magical reserves as she could into holding her spell together, while quickly building up the strength to begin walking. She needed to map this room, find her bearings.

Underneath all that pressure, all that fear, something dragging her along still remained. She hadn’t even begun to think about it yet, however, it began to become more apparent to her that something wasn’t quite right.

Twilight decided to focus her efforts on the same strategy as before, follow the wall, find the next step of the pathway. With efforts born of pure will, the alicorn paced the edge, hugging the wall. Her teeth chattered and her limbs began to shake with a peak fervor.

She walked.

Hugging her wings close to her side, she walked, moving like a robot, mind on that of two things. Walk and hold the matrix. Walk and hold the matrix.

The further along the fall she began to follow, Twilight found that the solid, rock-like consistency that made up the majority of the hollowed out cavern rounded off very suddenly to one of ice, pure and easy to identify.

Curiosity burning in her veins, Twilight raced along the edge, carefully making note of where the ice was. A few steps later it ended, merging back with the rock once more. Intrigued, Twilight moved, compelled with that strange energy once more, back to the ice.

Tracing her eyes carefully along it’s surface, it looked roughly the same along the four-foot stretch of it’s entirety, though, with the pervasive darkness, it was hard to truly tell how honest that was.

The longer she focused on that wall, the stronger the pressure building in skull became, and just as much, the more forceful that mysterious compulsion became. Her headache became more incised, the pain began.

Angered, Twilight forced a hoof against her forehead, massaging the area just underneath her horn, yet no relief came, in fact, it grew stronger by the second. As she opened her eyes, Twilight noted with no short amount of panic, that the hazy darkness around her was moving attempting even more furiously to snuff out the light she was creating. More importantly, it was moving heavily on the wall.

Compulsion flared inside her head, overshadowing the pressure for just a moment. Twilight became much, much more interested in the ice wall ahead, noting for the first time, an odd shape just barely noticeable within.

Gritting her teeth, finally, understanding, understanding the unusual crushing, suffocating darkness around didn’t want her to reach this point. Whatever was in here, it didn’t want her to see whatever was inside that wall.

That odd compulsion, like that of an aching hunger, pushing her forward against her will, against her better common sense, it all was for this.

Whatever was in that blasted ice wall. Twilight had to know. She had to.

Planting her hooves squarely against the ground, Twilight closed her eyes, straining with all her might to call upon whatever magical energies rested inside this dead land, all that still remained pooled inside her, in the very core of her soul. She needed all of it.

Winding the spell tighter, Twilight fed all of her strength into her head, funneling that spell into her horn with whatever energy, whatever life was still inside her body, withered away by time as it was.

Shadows began to grow, tumultuous fighting against the lighthouse before it, trying to drown her. It held valiantly for several minutes, pushing the weakened alicorn back with a might she herself couldn’t muster.

Angered and distressed, Twilight shrieked out, a blinding pain splitting her skull open as she rammed every inch of her remaining power into her horn, a brilliant, red-tinged light pulsing through the room suddenly.

Twilight was faintly aware of the shadows themselves shrieking lowly as they dissolved.

Silence reigned for several moments. Twilight hovered in place, wings immobile, head slumped over as if unconscious. The mare fell to the ground, her head resting on her forearms, breathing heavily, greedily sucking in gulps of the tainted air around her.

A dribble of blood slipped down her horn, sliding into the fur on her muzzle. Opening her eyes blearily, Twilight looked up at the wall, weakly and with evident confusion.

Her mouth fell open. Disbelief and denial ebbed into her eyes, she began shaking her head feebly. Tears fell from her eyes, and a choked sob threatened to spill out of her throat. She wanted to look away, yet she couldn’t. She had to look. She was forced to look….

…..At the figure, easily distinguishable now, it’s white coat and stylized purple mane shining brightly in the light from Twilight’s horn. It’s eyes were closed as if sleeping. She looked healthy, alive and well, yet completely imprisoned in the wall.

Twilight screaming loudly, her voice breaking and shuddering, before dying out with a wet cough.

Rarity slept on, completely unaware.

Redemption Lost

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The wind howled in her ears, the pounding of her own hoof-falls muted beneath a thousand feet of snowfall. Twilight's breath came in raspy tirades, straining her lungs to their breaking point. The mare felt the blood gushing in her ears freeze as the blizzard tore every conviction straight out of her heart.

She lumbered on, the unconscious Rarity barely sticking to her back as Twilight struggled through the winter storm, its pounding intensity not even sending a shiver down the unconscious unicorn's spine. In the distance, the bay had all but iced over, its form completely clouded in the intense white out.

Twilight did't know how she knew it. The ship was ahead, that was all she knew.

Every shaking step brought the ship closer, the salvation that lie ahead called to her like a moth to a flame, and the Alicorn could do nothing but let the current pull her closer, like the ambient winds had dragged her wayward vessel towards damnation these past decades. Or was it centuries? Millennia?

Far behind her, the cave lie, yet for some horrifying reason Twilight felt as though it was still right on her back. The dark abyss of it's mouth threatening to drag her back into it's depths. Back to another one of the still forms of her old companions. Blood stuck to her tongue, the taste of marrow glued to the roof of her mouth, bile burning the back of her throat as the sensation of fur and hair rising with it from her stomach.

Snow began to completely cover Twilight, her wings sagged underneath it. Rarity was still there, hung underneath it's weight, unmoving, unfeeling.

The storm howled even more ferociously in her skull, the white abyss dragging her down into the snow. Her bones cracked, the skin froze, the Alicorn felt her her eyelids begin to stick. Memories of summer in a town she had long since forgotten filtered through her mind, the laughter of youth, the joy of ignorance. Between stills of happiness and unassumption flickers of a far more alien entity began to creep, laying seeds in her brain.

A white shape, enormous and all consuming. It let out a rumbling growl, a sorrowful note worming it's way into the perverse rumble. The hunt began again, the mass following her every memory, slipping between the flashes of her past life like a spectral parasite, eating away at every desperately clinging shred of sanity. Snow fell.

In the distance, the ghostly outline of her ship appeared, cast in a blackish light, consumed by snowy visions of the whale as it circled the vessel. All around the water had been frozen, except it left a purposeful alley of water untouched, the space of still water stretching out behind her forsaken vessel. Back into the sea, waiting for her.

Walking slowly, absentmindedly upon the snow covered ice, she made for the ropes, the path back onto her eternal prison.
Twilight's horn sparked to life almost without her call, lifting Rarity limply off her snow covered back. The Alicorn climbed the ropes with a practiced amount of hoof work. Once Rarity was lifelessly deposited on the deck, Twilight cast her eyes back over the side of the ship, back onto the glacial plains below.

The snow had stopped, the wind had faltered, only a haunting and ghostly silence remained. Ringing in the back of her mind, Twilight heard the call back in that sea, the whale was waiting for her. Without a look back her, the castaway climbed back off the moored ship, hitting the ice and crumbling as a bone snapped underneath the weight of her form.

She didn't make a sound.

Blinking blearily through the pain, the near lifeless Alicorn stared back across the plain, knowing deep within that the cave lie just behind her view. Without any hesitation in her steps, Twilight walked on, the creaking of wood, the cracking of teak behind giving her ample courage to continue onward.

Terror had seized her throat and numbed her brain to the realization that what she would find down there would be even worse than before.

As the plains expanded out before her, Twilight felt the bubbling of bile in her throat tickle her teeth. Swallowing hard, the alicorn lifted a hoof and bit into it. The taste of blood made her gag hard, heaving into the snow. The ringing croon of the whale had followed her out here again.

Snarling, Twilight felt new life enter her veins. The blood pumped free from her heart like fire, racing down her legs and into her wings, and with a silent scream she ran off into the building snow. A thought entered her head, one that spoke of the danger of letting the snowfall consume her a second time.

Twilight didn't know if anything could top her fate thus far, death certainly couldn't, but something primordial, that aching feeling of unease told her she didn't want to be consumed in this snow. That horrid feeling told her she might have that question answered for her if she did.

The snow storm amplified in intensity, clouding her vision once again in a sea of white. Twilight cursed under her breath, eyes scrambling to make out the shape of something in the snow, anything to give reprieve of this horrid snow. She would've done well to watch her step.

Crying out, Twilight sunk into the ledge of a hidden snowbank, tumbling through it and falling far into the ravine below. Somewhere along the way the Alicorn fainted, waking up groggy and in pain. Gasping numbly at the feeling of her fur and skin cracking from her movements, Twilight whimpered and pushed herself upright. While she rose, several pounds of freshly reddened snow fell off her back.

The storm had vanished, leaving Twilight staring up into the dark interior of a cave, not dissimilar to the one before, moreover, this one appeared far larger, it's gaping mouth shattering her resolve into pieces. Twilight trembled, though not because of the blistering cold.

A bolt of lightning shot through her skull, making her cry out loudly in agony. The flash of a memory lanced through her skull. Visions of cyan, the memory of a friend long since forgotten to time. A scratchy voice, weak from from hunger and raspy from thirst. It's signature bravado lost in the blazing heat of the sun.

A feeling she hadn't felt in so long. It was almost completely alien to her. Down in that cave was someone she couldn't leave there, she knew that they would've done the same for her had she been given the chance.

Almost of their own accord, shaking limbs took her deeper into the expansive mouth of the cave. The dim interior seemed to stretch for miles in every direction. Twilight forced the lump in her throat down, walking numbly into the cold blackness below. Glancing over her shoulder, Twilight paused in muted horror.

Just barely in the distance now, over a mile over her shoulder, the dim light of the outside world peeked through the tiny crack in the wall that was once a massive hole nearly right behind her. Trepidation gripped her lungs in a vice grip. The air itself seemed to freeze, dragging any confidence and conviction she had before into the unforgiving darkness all around her.

Just when it seemed the oppressive darkness and biting cold was going to silence her forever, a familiar scratchy laugh echoed deep in the cave before her.

Twilight froze, eyes immediately training in the direction of the noise. More images burned in her mind, images of a cocky smile, bright ruby eyes, and a mane the color of a vibrant rainbow. Memories she had buried far below the reaches of her own waking mind surged to the surface.

The alicorn collapsed and screamed in unfathomable terror as they overwhelmed her fragile mental barrier.

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Rainbow Dash rushed after her, the Pegasus easily overtaking the alicorn in barely an instant. Her mane was frazzled and her eyes were wild.

"Twilight, it's gone! It's already..." The cyan pegasus trailed off as her friend's eyes locked on something behind her. A titanic wave of water rushed over the mountains, spilling into the valley destroying everything in it's path. "Oh my Celestia." The pegasus's signature bravado was gone, replaced by a hollow fear.

Without waiting for her to react, Twilight grabbed the terrified mare in her magic, teleporting them both as far away as possible. The alicorn didn't even have time to think of her next course of action, sending them both to the place where the rest of their friends had been hiding out.

A small harbor town on the other side of the continent. They had failed. Failed in their mission to secure the last element of harmony before the waves enveloped Ponyville. The surge of magic needed to teleport both her and Dash hundreds of miles momentarily turned her brain to mush and she had passed out before the teleportation matrix had even finished stabilizing after the jump.

When she came to, the concerned face of Dash stared down at her, a hollow sadness in her eyes. What came next was the senses of hearing, the sobbing of the other elements, Rarity and Applejack clinging to each other. Rarity sobbed about her sister into Applejack's mane, the latter shedding several tears herself as she stroked the purple mane of her more emotional friend.

Pinkie was staring blankly forward, a detached expression on her face as she stared into space. Behind her, Fluttershy lay curled up in the pink mare's tail, trembling while tiny whimpers escaped her. Twilight's mind was sluggish to return to reality, but the mare rather quick to become fully lucid again.

"I'm okay Dash, just a bit groggy." She gave a shaky smile to the pegasus who for her part just looked unconvinced. Her ruby eyes twinkled with tears, thought in her case they stayed still that way, tears not falling from the pools of red.

"What now?" The question echoed in her brain. Truly, what now.....

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The pain in Twilight's head was immense, worse than anything she could remember, worse than any pain her body had suffered aboard her derelict ship. Breath coming in shallow gulps, Twilight tried to think, tried to recall where she was. Fuzziness cluttered her thoughts.

Images of red and blue echoed across her shattered mental space, a space that suddenly seemed much larger and emptier than before. Rainbow Dash.

Her friend. Yes that was it.

She was here for her.

Twilight's ears rung and the mare felt her heart racing under her emaciated form, blood gushing in gallons through her body. With a strength she hadn't felt in centuries, the alicorn surged to her hooves, nearly leaping back to a standing position.

With her eyes adjusted, the cave seemed truly even more cavernous than before, it's depth looming on for miles. Carved into the walls, the cave descended downwards into multiple forks and pathways. A sudden realization hit her.

"There could be millions of different pathways in here." She trembled as the idea came suddenly to her. Fear gripped her, leaving her paralyzed once again. Chose the wrong path and who knows how long she'd be down here, wandering though the dark. Aimless, until her body completely broke down, or worse, that her mind was be gone before her body did.

Thousands of years stuck in hell, desperately searching for a way out of the dark, just to be brought back into the hell above, the looming sea that awaited what remained of her.

Twilight let the renewed clarity she had gained win out, slapping herself hard in the cheek. The stinging pain and dull ringing in her head brought her mind back to reality as it were. The alicorn's previous self shone through a bit, picking out a plan and letting it form naturally.

What would Dash have done. That was the real question.

Twilight's thoughts were still split, her mind fragile and shaken, but if what she remembered about Dash held true, the pegasus's first choice would've been the closest split in the cave. Scanning her eyes through the darkness, Twilight felt that lingering terror grip her bones once more.

The scale of the cavern she found herself in truly was imposing beyond all reason. A shaky breath left her burning lungs, echoing loudly in the silent cave. The noise itself seemed to echo back impossibly loud, it's reverb shaking her to the core.

In no rush to stick around, Twilight ran to the nearest hole in the wall, tears pricking her dry eyes as a presence seemed to loom right behind her, following her every step. Terrified, the alicorn shrieked, horn glowing ominously as she ran, yet the specter kept on her back. Words began to whisper into her ears, impossibly loud against the backdrop of her own heavy breathing and the dull thudding of her hooves racing across the cold stone ground.

"We have no choice" It whispered in an all to familiar voice, that of her own, yet not tinged with the desperation and horror that she knew she had once spoken them in. "This ship is cursed" The gleeful malice in it's voice was oh so wrong.

"And so are we."

When she was close enough, Twilight threw herself down the hole, sliding uncontrollably down the steep incline. The mare cried out in pain as her body scraped painfully along the rough stones. She tumbled for another few minutes, bones snapping and flesh breaking open upon every sharp break in the fall before it further plummeted down into the earth.

The fall suddenly broke upon the snowy floor below, Twilight groaning weakly in pain. She was content just to lay there, letting the throbbing pain and sharp stinging in her body replace the horrid dread of the specter from before, the life slowly draining from her body.

A voice whispered unintelligibly in her ear suddenly, yet it wasn't the terrifying imitation of her own from above. The soft yet scratchy voice calmed her aching mind. The voice left her remembering the time before, however the visions of the past didn't come at the cost of mind numbing pain or with a guilt and remorse thick enough to span entire lifetimes.

This voice spoke of warmth and of friendship, of hopes for the future and joy over the past that had been spent together. Twilight saw images of journeys through forests, memories of fighting off evil and pain with her friends in tow.

Beyond this veil she saw the smiling face of Rainbow Dash, her ruby eyes sparking with confidence and pride, looking over her shoulder as she taught her new flying buddy her way through the skies. The clouds separated around them as they soared over the land below, houses as small as stones and people the size of grains of sand.

Following closely behind, stills of them wandering through cities and towns, talking and laughing as they beheld whatever caught their eyes. Journeys through unfamiliar places not wrought with fear but with reassurance and comfort in their mutual companionship.

Red began to tinge her vision as these flashes of the past began to darken. Fear spilled over into reality. A wave consumed them all, happiness ended, sorrow and fear overtook. Where before the comfort of companionship had been constant, isolation and disassociation replaced it.

Freedom died, trapped on a vessel, tiny and listless before what had been their entire world to explore. For all that they had done, redemption had lost their way, lost before the endless sea.

In the seeds of madness, Twilight felt the memories bloom, breaking free of their chained confinement, lashing out cutting her mind to shreds. Staring at the corpse of the Pegasus, dead from hunger and disease, hunger had broken their senses and morality. A moment of weakness followed. The teeth gnaw on her bones for the next two weeks.

Twilight sobbed, guilt and repressed remorse racking her frame, crying out in sorrow, mumbling apologies to the dead silence before her. Her voice went hoarse from screaming and crying and her body went still, too weak to continue.

In the silence, the whispers began, however they were not the perverted incantations of her own voice. What spoke to her in the cold silence was the warm, scratchy voice of her friend from a past life, it's voice mumbled and unintelligible, but filled with understanding. Twilight slowly lifted her heavy head, hoping against hope to see a figure made of cyan standing before her, those warm eyes gazing at her with forgiveness and kindness.

It wasn't to be, for the only thing before her was a blackened shape, grinning in unrestrained malice as it stared right into her frozen eyes with it's own glowing ruby ones, a horrid low rumbling in it's throat shaking the earth....

The Call of the Wretched Sea

by Starlix

An Eye

Below The Sun

Further South

The Glacial Sermon

Redemption Lost