A wintery tale told by a magic snow-pony about the events that almost ended Hearth's Warming that takes a not so unexpected turn when Princess Luna faces the Candy Mare in a last ditch battle to save Equestria!
Gather around the hearth for this holiday horror told to a group of precocious young fillies and colts by a magical Snow Pony!
Our tale takes us back into Equestria's past, when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had not yet had their falling out. However, that does not mean all was well in Equestria - A certain sweet serial killer stalks the frozen north, eluding the royal guard, frustrating all attempts to bring her rampage to an end.
Nightmare Night may be ending soon, but this is one festive feature that's bound to chill your blood and tingle your spine!
Snowflakes drift serenely through the night, fleetingly illuminated by the silvery beams of moonlight which break through the overcast sky. Far below the snow falls gently on the fairy lights and tinsel that twinkle merrily, strewn about the quaint little hamlet of Trottingham. In the cobble-stoned streets of the cheerily decorated town ponies of every stripe bustle about their holiday business. Some late shoppers dart from store to store, gathering supplies for feasts and parties that are only a few more sleeps away. Other ponies gaily deck their halls with yet more decorations for all to enjoy, perhaps hoping to attract a few more eyes to their shops for those last minute yuletide sales. Despite the cold, many a mare and stallion are clearly out to do nothing more than enjoy the good food and festive cheer all around them, drinking hot cider to stave off the chill.
As each pony sets about their business, they can't help but break into a familiar and jolly carol ~
'♪♫Ponies' voices fill the night~♪♫' 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!' 'Happy hearts so full and bright~' 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!' 'Oh, what a sight~' 'Look at the light!' 'All for tonight!' 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!'
The sights and sounds are enough to move the hearts of even the most humbugged of individuals to a merry glow. As the ponies sing their song a new voice drifts in, high and strange, but no less joyous than their own...
'♪♫So gather round and share the cheer~♪♫' 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!' 'To celebrate another year~' 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again' 'But did you know?' 'Not long ago...' 'It was not so!' 'Hearth's Warming Eve nearly came to an end!'
Caught off guard by these strange new lyrics the ponies paused to turn to the new singer, muttering quizzically among themselves. However, the singer seemed to relish this sudden shift in attention. They jumped to the top of the town square's frozen fountain and tipped a holly wreathed top-hat to the crowd. It was then that those citizens of Trottingham closest to the newcomer gasped in amazement!
"Why, she's made of snow!"
"Snow?"
"Yes, a pony made entirely of snow! A snow pony!"
Indeed, the pony who bowed so flamboyantly to their wondering eyes appeared to be a living Snow Mare! Aside from the silken black hat that now rested atop her head, as well as a red and black striped scarf that the pony wore around her neck, every inch of the pony's body was crystalline and gleaming white from the tips of her ears down to the soles of her hooves. Although snow wasn't exactly the only thing used in her construction; The Snow Mare graced the crowd with a wide smile and, as she did, tiny candy corn teeth peeked out from between her frosty lips. The snow pony had been cleverly sculpted to have a most expressive face, complete with peppermint dimples at the corners of its broad mouth. Wide lollipop eyes that seemed to glow in the reflected light of the jolly decorations spun and swirled in the shadow cast by the brim of her top-hat. She also sported several gumdrop buttons down her chest, like one might find on a holiday gingerbread treat. All in all, the Snow Mare looked like she’d be something sweet to bite in other circumstances.
Some of the adults looked a little disturbed by this strange pony's sudden appearance, but the children all around the town square lit up with delight.
A magic snow-pony!
Golems made out of snow were all the rage in the larger cities, created by powerful unicorn wizards to entertain crowds and tell stories of Hearth's Warming Eve's long, long ago! They existed to keep the spirit of Hearth’s Warming alive and well and to remind ponies to share good will and glad tidings! What a treat to find one in Trottingham, a hamlet populated mostly by earth ponies and fairly old fashioned ones at that.
Despite the Snow Mare's uncanny and unexpected arrival, or perhaps because of it, such a diversion was so singular as to immediately garner all the little filly's and colt's rapt attention. But not everyone gazed at the Snow Mare with wonder. In response to some of the older folk's shocked expressions, and perhaps to allay their fears, the snow pony danced a merry jig for their entertainment as she continued to hum a cheerful seasonal song.
The Snow Mare flipped and did cartwheels around the fountains edge and, picking up a few snow balls, she then began to juggle while sliding and skating across the frozen surface of the water within. As the festively frosty pony tossed the snow balls one by one high into the air she even removed her own head and tossed it up high into the sky, letting the snow balls and its own errant noggin fall back down onto her waiting shoulders! She then spat the snowballs back up into the air one by one where they burst into a shower of icy glitter that rained down along with pieces of apparently free candy! The Snow Mare then finished by performing a triple-axle before landing in the splits and spreading her forelegs wide with a dazzling smile and a spirited "Ta-da!"
The fillies and colts went wild with applause and laughter! As the children had been drawn further in by the acrobatic display, pointing and laughing with wonder and delight, the adults had managed to shrug off their own misgivings and join in. It seemed that there was nothing to fear from the Snow Mare and this spectacle seemed to be all in good fun. It was not long before all seemed eager to see how this holiday novelty might play out.
"That's right fillies and gentlecolts, gather round!" beckoned the snow pony with fervor and glee. She settled down on her haunches at the edge of the fountain, eager young foals practically spilling into her lap. "Gather round, and I shall regale you with a stupendous seasonal tale of past, present, and future, to captivate and terrify!"
One tiny filly, bundled up under so many layers of winter apparel that she could barely move, squealed as she exclaimed, "That was awmazing miss Snow Pony! Are you gonna tell us the tale of the fuwst Heawths Wawming, when the pony twibes set aside theiw diffewences and united undew the fwag of Equestwia?"
"No little girl. No, I won't!" replied the Snow Mare, with a confident grin.
Murmurs of confusion spread through the crowd. That was exactly the sort of story the snow pony's audience had been expecting! This wasn't how most interactions with story tellers, let alone a magic snow pony, was meant to go. They were fonts of festive holiday cheer, meant to enchant young and old alike wherever they were found. To deny the request of such a cute and precocious young filly so flatly was far from what was expected.
As if sensing the disquiet in the crowd, the Snow Mare quickly continued, "Wait, wait! I mean yes! Yes, little girl! I will tell you a tale reaching far back into Equestria's past, but not quite so far back as its founding. I will tell you a tale of mystery and danger, the triumph of good over evil, and a holiday lesson that will stay with you for the rest of your lives!" With a flourish, the Snow Mare jumped to her hooves, and grinned charmingly at the expectant ponies. All fears had been allayed and the crowd seemed eager once more to get underway. She had them eating out of her hoof now."This is the tale, of the 'Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER!' It's a little hazy, but it all started some one thousand moons ago..."
The dying rays of the shimmering sunset faded as the last glimpse of the swollen fiery orb sunk beneath the horizon. The snowy landscape below sparkled in the twilight as it was plunged into the deep blues and comforting purples of the oncoming night.
Freezing winds raked Flash Magnus's wings like icy talons, taking his breath away and blurring his vision. He was used to such extreme conditions, as the patrols of the Cloudsdale Legionnaires covered a wide swath of territory, spanning from Mount Everhoof in the north to the Bad Lands far to the south. Even so, this was the furthest north that Flash had been in quite awhile, and truth be told he was more used to the volcanic heat of the Dragon Lands than the frigid climes of the north. Far below, hills of snow whizzed by monotonously, broken up only by scraggly evergreens and the occasional dark shape of a brooding mountain. He knew he was running late, so despite the chill he did his best to maintain top speed.
Truth be told, Flash was not entirely sure why he was freezing his pin feathers off this far into Yeti territory. Much of the land he traveled over now had been given up for lost with the founding of Equestria, so generally it was viewed that anything that happened here was beyond the bounds of his authority. Secret missions could be fun from time to time, but being out of his normal jurisdiction and not knowing why he was here on top of that set the pegasus pony's feathers on edge. It didn't help that Hearth's Warming Eve was just around the corner, and at this time of year he was usually kicking back and keeping warm with friends, sharing a little holiday cheer in the form of hot drinks and card games late into the night. Still Commander Ironhead, the leader of the Royal Legion, had impressed on Flash how important this mission was to the safety of Equestria and the yuletide peace he so enjoyed.
If all of ponykind was counting on his bravery to defend them and their way of life, what choice did Flash have but to comply?
At the moment, however, he was regretting that sentiment as well as his own bravado. Icicles were beginning to form around sensitive parts of his body, and visibility was dropping fast. If he didn’t reach the rendezvous point soon then he wouldn't be surprised if he ended up turning into a flying pony-cicle shortly before crash landing in the snowy wastes below. He wasn't looking forward to becoming a flash frozen meal for the snow leopards to feast on, so he began to scan his surroundings with a bit of desperation, hoping to see signs that he was drawing close to his destination.
Fortunately just over the next rise a flicker of campfire flame amid a copse of fir and pine trees caught his eye. A whiff of smoke and the unmistakable scent of the standard issue hot cocoa, the kind the legion distributed to patrols for long nights, seized Flash Magnus's attention and let him know that he was not far from his goal. Nothing sounded better than that watery cup of hot chocolate right now, and maybe he could even manage to down some chow before the mission briefing if he hurried! But it was the heat of the bonfire he was truly craving, so despite the extra chill he redoubled his speed and made a bee line for it's cozy glow. Double checking that his trusty shield Netitus was secured tightly to his back, Flash dove from the sky like a bolt of lightning, only spreading his wings again at the last moment as he settled into the clearing nearly on top of the roaring fire.
“Ah Flash, good of you to join us. I was hoping you’d make it here before the scouts reported back,” came the gruff but reassuring voice of Commander Ironhead. It seemed the old pegasus and one other soldier that Flash did not recognize were the only ones in camp at the moment. “Your timing couldn’t be better.”
“Or worse, depending on how you look at it,” mumbled the stranger. He appeared to wear the garb of a royal guard of Canterlot and, taking a few more steps into the firelight, he revealed himself fully to the new arrival. A gasp of fright rose unbidden from Flash's lips as he got a good look at the pony who was keeping his chief officer company.
The stranger was a fellow pegasus, just like the cadet and his commander, but one who had been horribly maimed at some point. Half his once handsome face was a ruin, mangled scar tissue stretching down from an empty eye socket that pulled the flesh back tightly from exposed teeth and gums where a missing cheek had once been. The rest of his body, where it peeked through his armor, didn't seem to have fared much better. Deep gouges were missing from his flesh and horrific cuts, some still raw and wet and barely stitched together by thick black thread, crisscrossed his body. On top of that, he was an amputee, missing not only a foreleg but a hind leg as well. Both of which had been replaced with wooden facsimiles that seemed to only barely do the job of the lost limbs.
What was perhaps more disturbing about the unknown soldier, for a pegasus anyways, was the state of his wings. One was splayed out wide and twisted, clearly useless for flight, while it appeared the other had been amputated and replaced with a prosthetic of shaped metal that seemed ornamental rather than functional. It would be more accurate to say that what Flash beheld was the ruins of what had once been a pegasus soldier rather than a comrade in arms he could rely upon. Even so, the stranger had the bearing of an officer who didn't intend to allow his obviously debilitated condition to sap him of even an ounce of the pride that came with such a position. Far from the demeanor of an invalid, he carried himself with a dignity and grace that Flash was not certain he could ever hope to muster up himself, even able bodied as he was.
Seeing his cadet struck speechless, Ironhead smoothly shifted to introductions, “Flash, this is Commander Hurricane of the Royal Canterlot Guard. Commander, please allow me to introduce Cadet Flash Magnus of the Royal Legionaries and hero of Cloudsdale.”
“Hero is a bit strong, commander,” quipped Flash Magnus, flashing his trademark dazzling smile, “I’m just a soldier following orders.”
“Yes, and sometimes your a soldier who doesn’t follow orders,” replied the commander with a chuckle. It was a familiar exchange, routine at this point. “But your valor has seen your comrades through many close scrapes, which is why I am glad you could join us today. I fear we're in a spot of bother that we could really use your skills to sort out."
“I wouldn’t expect courage and camaraderie to see us through today gentlecolts,” Commander Hurricane groused darkly. “If such was all it took to achieve our mission objective then I wouldn’t be the handsome sight you see before you. Don't think I didn't catch that look you gave me Flash. Take it all in. Have a good stare at what remains of the once famous Commander Hurricane.”
“Wait, are you the Commander Hurricane?” sudden recognition dawned on the younger soldier's face. “You’re one of the founders of Equestria! I’ve read all about you! Is it true you faced down the Windigoes, went hoof to claw with a manticore, and forced the Griffons to accept an armistice!?”
“Don’t believe everything you read cadet, and only half of what you hear,” was Hurricane's stern reply, though he seemed to brighten for a moment at Flash’s exuberant recounting of his past exploits. It only lasted a moment though. “Tell me son, what else have you heard about me?”
Flash thought for a moment and then grew pale. “Er… Nothing else that matters sir. Nothing I’m presently disposed to discuss.”
That got a chuckle from Commander Ironhead who excused himself to ladle out a few steaming mugs from a cauldron hung above the fire, one which he passed to Flash and another which he offered to Hurricane, though the latter declined. “Are you sure?" asked Ironhead, swishing the mugs contents about, "It’s just hot chocolate. Something to warm up our insides while we wait on my platoon to get back.”
“No thank you. I don’t like anything sweet these days,” was the maimed stallion's somewhat curt reply. The entire time, he never once broke eye contact with Flash. “Let me tell you what else they say about me then, cadet. They say that I have gone mad. That I’ve been on a wild goose chase out here in the nether reaches of Equestria, sacrificing soldiers to fight invisible monsters and chase after myths. They say that my body has only come to resemble what it has in order to better reflect the wickedness in my withered black heart. Do you want to know something else, soldier?”
“What?” whispered Flash uneasily, his cooling cocoa going un-sipped, neglected as he listened intently.
“They aren’t entirely wrong,” A glint of zeal flashed in Hurricane's one remaining eye. “The truth is I didn’t want to involve the Cloudsdale Royal Legion in this affair. Sadly, I am running out of soldiers. The closer I get to fulfilling my oaths, the more ponies end up dead. And if you couldn’t guess from my lovely complexion, those that die may be considered to be the lucky ones. So despite your commanders wishes I am going to give you one opportunity to fly away while your wings are still attached to your unmarred body. You are here by special request cadet, not by any orders of mine, so if you look at me and worry about what they will say about you once you are no longer a handsome and strong stallion, then you might as well slurp down your cocoa and head back where you came from.”
In the ringing silence that followed there was a low rumble from above and a brief flash of green as the gently falling snow started to fall a little more fiercely. A snowflake drifted down and landed perfectly in the center of Flash's mug before melting into the now completely cooled liquid. The younger pegasus took one long pull from the mug, gulping down the contents in a single draught, and gave a self-satisfied sigh. He then placed the mug down next to the fire before he turned back to the commander that had in no uncertain terms told him to turn tail and run.
"I appreciate your candor sir," Flash began, very conspicuously not going back where he had come from. "But if we are being candid, I think I might actually look good with a scar or two. Also, I'm not put off by tales of legend and myths. I'm considered by some to be something of a legend myself, but as you can see I'm just one soldier with a better than average shield. Maybe I'm a little special, maybe I'm just lucky, or perhaps I'm just a little more willing to be reckless than the next pony. Regardless, I'm here now. So lets dispense with this cloak and dagger nonsense and get to outlining the mission parameters so we can sow this up and get back to the barracks before lights out."
"As you wish cadet," sniffed Commander Hurricane, though with a note of grudging respect in his gravely voice. "But don't be surprised if by the end of all this, when they're playing taps over your casket, that all they have left to bury of you is that shiny shield you're carrying."
"Now that we have all of that bloody business out of the way, I should like to hear what all this is about myself," spoke up Commander Ironhead rejoining the conversation, with a fresh mug for his favorite cadet. "It's been some time since the rest of the squad was sent out and I should like to be able to have some idea of what to be looking out for in their reports once they make it back."
"I sincerely doubt the rest of your battalion will be making it back commander," the scarred pegasus turned away from the fire, his face disappearing into shadow as he stood silhouetted against the night. "I'm sorry to say that they are most likely already dead. If we are very lucky, then perhaps they will stay that way."
"Dead?" Flash sputtered on a mouthful of hot chocolate, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. "What do you mean dead?"
"What do you mean indeed!" choked Ironhead, coughing as he nearly inhaled the peppermint stick from his second mug of cocoa.
"I'm afraid the two of you are in for a rather rude surprise. I know I was," Commander Hurricane turned his gaze back to the fire, a haunted look on his face. "At first they just thought it was some kind of disease. A virus, that effected the mind as well as the body. They dismissed it... dismissed her, as some sort of mass hallucination brought on by the illness. But then the rumors began to spread like wildfire, and ponies that were unconnected to the original outbreak began to rapidly disappear. We thought they were just getting lost in the snow as they evacuated the old tribal kingdoms. 'Taken by Windigoes' was the half joke, half horror story told by the old timers to the new recruits. Little did we know the truth was something far worse. A patient zero had been theorized of course, a source of the pathogen, but she was so much more than what we had expected..."
"I say, enough of the campfire tales, what do you bloody well mean our squadron won't be returning?" blustered Commander Ironhead, his feathers ruffling.
But the scarred pegasus just ignored him. His one good eye reflected the firelight eerily. "I had dispatched Private Pansy to oversee the evacuation and to determine if there was any truth to the rumors about the disappearances. She was there to make sure that those earth ponies who had long feared the pegasi as brutes would be treated with friendship and tolerance, even as they were forced to leave their homes and livelihoods behind for new lives in Equestria. Though she could be somewhat timid, she could at least do that. I assure you that she was not meant to intervene directly, to act on her own, yet Pansy was always so tenderhearted that when she heard about the missing children she couldn't help but investigate. There was no way for her to know that they had been taken by her... by our 'patient zero'." He gave a dry, mirthless chuckle that sounded like the cracking of brittle tree bark. "They were taken to a house out of a fairy tale, made of gingerbread and other sweets, or at least that was how it appeared on the outside. Inside it was an abattoir, a slaughterhouse for ponies. She had been hunting them, eating them it seems, for some time. She had been doing worse than eating them, too - storing them away so she wouldn't go hungry over the course of the unending winter."
"Wh-who...?" stuttered Flash Magnus, his jaw tightening.
"The Candy Mare," spat the old war horse with disgust, as if the name itself left a bad taste in his mouth. "Pansy escaped, but only because she let her. Pansy was meant to be a message to all of ponykind. A vow of unfathomable hatred and darkest revenge. It was not a disease she had inflicted upon her victims, but rather a curse. A curse which we were just barely coming to grips with when it suddenly changed and mutated into unspeakable horror. No longer were the afflicted listless and weak shadows of themselves. Instead their bodies bloated with corruption and at the same time swelled with strength. Their deranged giggles and sing-song voices echoed through the night, haunting the edges of Equestria. It was no longer a threat that lay quiet in the shadows, but a promise of teeth and claws flashing from the dark to snatch whomever they might devour. And it's been coming closer to our territory day by day. I've lost so many royal guards putting down the Candy Mare's victims, but still she herself eludes us. She has become wary. She's not a mindless monster like her victims, but rather a cunning predator that watches and waits for her time to strike. The only way to draw her out now is with the proper bait. Live bait..."
"The Clousdale Royal Legion," muttered Ironhead, grim realization dawning. "We weren't sent here to help scout for a threat! We were sent here to draw it out! How could you do this!? How could you use your fellow soldiers in such a cruel way!?"
"I told you, this was not my plan to begin with," replied Hurricane, his face ashen and expression desolate. "I never wanted this. I'm following orders, just like you."
"Who's bloody orders then!?" demanded the leader of the doomed legionnaires.
"Wait... do you smell that?" asked the one-eyed pony, his nose turning upwards.
"Don't change the subject!" shouted Ironhead.
"Shut up!" barked Hurricane in frustration,"Just, take a moment and listen to me. Smell the wind. Half my nose is missing so I can't smell things the way I once did, but is that the scent of peppermint on the air?"
"You thundering idiot! Of course it is! I found your stash of peppermint sticks where you left them by the fire!” bellowed Ironhead, the veins bulging in his neck, "What do you think I've been using to stir my cocoa?"
“But I thought the commander said he didn’t like sweets?” wondered Flash aloud.
As he said this, Commander Hurricane’s eye grew wide with horror and he quickly knocked the mug from Ironhead’s grasp. Too late, the peppermint stick seemed to rise into the air of its own accord and exploded into jagged splinters of candy shrapnel. Hurricane and Flash managed to duck aside, but Ironhead was too close to evade the cloud of razor sharp shards! The explosion flayed off Ironhead's face with a sound like a power sander being brought to bear. Once embedded into the raw meat, the peppermint pieces began shredding the rest of his head! In mere moments he went from a normal pony to a gore dripping ghoul as his scalp was peeled completely off and left flapping uselessly from the back of his skull!
Blood flowed down Ironhead's neck like a waterfall as the candy razors sliced into his throat, robbing him of both breath and speech. His eyelids had been completely removed, leaving him staring in shock at the other two pegasi who were helpless to aid him. The tendons in his mouth were severed, causing his jaw to flop open and hang slack, blood and shards of broken teeth dripping into the snow as his tongue was snipped clean through by the animate peppermint slivers. Ironhead twitched as the cold air licked over his skinned head, before the pain overloaded his senses and his knees buckled out from under him. The once indomitable commander fell in an ungainly heap without uttering so much as a whimper, peppermint shards still dusting the stripped bone where his face had been.
In response, a shrill cry of girlish glee echoed from the dark, childish giggles bursting like bright Champaign bubbles over the clearing.
"She's here!" roared Commander Hurricane, his wild eye darting to the trees. "We need more light!" Flash was frozen where he stood, the sudden violence done to his direct commander coming on the heels of Hurricane's harrowing tale had left his mind numb and his body useless. It was only when the voice of authority turned to him and shouted once more 'We need more light, now, cadet!' that his instincts kicked in and he quickly darted to a nearby log pile and threw fresh fuel on the bonfire.
They were under attack, and spotting the enemy was paramount to their survival. The flames roared up, eagerly devouring the fresh seasoned tinder, expanding the circle of light and visibility up to the nearby treeline.
Sadly what the blaze illuminated was more discouraging than what had happened to poor Commander Ironhead.
Each tree around the clearing glistened wetly in the firelight. Strewn about in their evergreen boughs were grizzly 'decorations' that shimmered moistly as they dripped a steady crimson rain into the snow. Entrails were strung haphazardly about the tree limbs, which were also bent down under the weight of draining organs that had formally been very much internal. Here was a heart, and there a kidney, and over there the unmistakable butterfly shape of a pair of lungs. All were shining and shimmering, dusted as they were with sugar and shards of candy!
Bones and shreds of flesh hung all about the foliage as well and on the stripped hides Flash Magnus could just pick out the cutie marks of the members of his battalion. Each and everyone, down to even the very newest recruits were all present and accounted for. Indeed the eyeless decapitated heads of his fellows crowned the tops of each tree, staring down at him with expressions of terror and despair. Their pain distorted faces seemed to cry out to him even now, begging to know why he was not there to protect them.
The childish giggles from before gradually grew into peels of insane laughter that were punctuated by orange and green lightning flashes which only served to further illuminate the grizzly parody of a Hearth's Warming grotto.
"~Oh, what a sight...~" howled the deranged voice in a sinister sing-song tune, "~Look at the light! All for tonight! Hearth’s Warming Eve is here once again!~ Hahahahaha!"
"The Candy Mare..." Flash Magnus slipped his shield from his back and readied it to defend himself as he tore his eyes from the remains of his comrades and cast a glance back towards Commander Hurricane. "Did she do this? She can't be a pony. What is she? What is she really?"
"She's a myth and a legend, cadet," responded Hurricane, readying a spiked mace he had hidden under his cloak. "The very worst kind, straight out of the blackest depths of Tartarus. A nightmare which Equestria must wake from at all costs!"
"No Commander, I mean literally, what could do all this without us even noticing!?" cried Flash, unable to keep his eyes from wandering back to the accusing stares of the eyeless sockets of his brutally dismembered friends. "How could one mare do this? What is she?"
"Who? Me?" asked a tiny filly that danced out from just beyond the fire-lit circle of death. "I'm just a little pony, mister."
The Candy Mare's lollipop eyes spun crazily as dozens of candy corn fanged mouths erupted with laughter all over her body, her red and black licorice mane writhing around her head like a nest of vipers.
As quickly as she had revealed herself, the Candy Mare darted back into the dark, not giving her prey a chance to react. The echoes of her laughter came from every direction as the trees surrounding the clearing began to bend and shake as if caught in a violent storm. It was clear that the monster was trying to disorient them and keep them guessing about where exactly she was and from where she might strike.
Flash Magnus readied his shield and took wing, but since he didn't know from where or when his enemy might attack he held his position with his back to the flames. He cursed himself for sacrificing his night vision for the limited illumination that the stoked bonfire provided, the firelight only serving to illuminate a perfect kill zone for their opponent, given how fast she seemed capable of moving. As it was, the Candy Mare knew right where they were, but it was impossible to pick her fleeting form from among the ever shifting shadows.
It didn't help that Flash's eyes kept drifting to the remains of his fellow legionaries. They were ponies that he had served with, shared meals with, and stood watch with more times than he could count. He knew all of their hopes and dreams. Or rather, he had known them, but now those aspirations has been cut short as brutally as their lives. Such was the fate of soldiers of course, but that didn't mean he could accept such wholesale slaughter. Flash Magnus, who had engaged dragons in dogfights and danced through their fiery breath without singeing a feather, had never felt as close to death as he did right now...
Without warning a giggling ball of teeth and claws exploded from the snow, eyes glowing with swirled pink and blue madness as it hurtled at blinding speed towards the pegasi. Instinctively Flash raised his shield at the last possible moment, the fiends flashing limbs sending sparks flying into the night as they scraped across the metallic surface with a terrible screech! For a moment her full weight was pressed against the Netitus, and Flash's every muscle strained against her fearsome momentum. The Candy Mare was far heavier than her diminutive size would have led him to believe, but even so his defenses held and he managed to shrug her off, deflecting her attack to one side.
For an ever so brief moment, the Candy Mare hung helplessly in the air. Seizing this chance, Commander Hurricane charged the thrashing beast mid-air. With a whoosh, he brought his mace down in a lightning fast arc aimed to crush her candy skull with one mighty blow!
Unfortunately, the heavy spiked ball only slammed uselessly into the ground, its intended target contorting herself into an unnatural shape to dodge the spiked metal orb. Instead, the Candy Mare skidded to a halt by the fire, hunched over commander Ironhead's prone body. Without missing a beat, Hurricane brought his mace up in a searing uppercut, that for just a moment appeared to connect with the cannibal corpse's chin, before the fleet footed filly bolted away, back into the treeline. She left behind no trace of her presence aside from her mocking laughter.
"She's quick," spat Hurricane, as if it were a curse.
"Tell me something I don't know!" shouted Flash, his ire rising with his adrenaline. "What's the plan? How do we beat this thing!?"
"If you figure it out, be sure to let me know," was the commanders flippant response. "I've only been trying to kill her every day since she popped my best friend like a water balloon."
"Hahaha! I bet that was quiet the sight! You certainly have been trailing me doggedly since then, little hound! And oh the price he has paid for the privilege!" ridiculed Candy Mare, with a scornful chuckle. "First I took an eye. Then a leg. Then a wing. Then another leg, because honestly, why not go for a matching set? What should I take from you this time commander?"
"You already took the only thing that ever mattered to me, beast!" shouted back the mutilated pegasus as he raised his mace menacingly. "I'll pay whatever toll I must in order to smash in that sick smile of yours, no matter how steep!"
"Oh goodie!" shrieked the monstrous mare, as if she enjoyed her enemies rage. "Then I guess it's chef's choice! What piece of you should I devour next? Perhaps this time I'll just take your head!"
With that, a scythe like appendage whistled out of the forest straight for Hurricane's throat!
Fortunately, the commander was able to duck just before the razor edged limb could slice through his neck, though the plume of his helm was shaved clean off. The flashing candy scythe didn't stop there, however, and wrapped itself like a grasping tentacle around Flash Magnus's leg, digging into the meat with a sick thunk!
A howl of pain erupted from the legionnaire as with a tug the Candy Mare nearly degloved his extremity, sending a fresh spurt of arterial blood to blotch the now crimson snow.
"Ooh! Maybe I'll just take another one of your toy soldiers instead!" the Candy Mare chortled. She showed herself once more, licking her orange and black striped tongue over her candy corn fangs as she peeked out of the shadows. "After all, these pegasus troops are quite crunchy and taste good chilled to the bone with terror!"
As the candy coated fiend gloated, however, Flash Magnus had other ideas. Raising his shield over his head, he brought it down hard - edge first - on the grasping tendril that held him.
The Candy Mare screamed!
Despite it appearing to be just a strand of the mad mare's hair, black blood erupted from the severed strand and the candy coated beast herself let out a pained squeal as the metal sliced the rest of the way through! With a painful kick of his partially skinned leg, the pegasus soldier shook loose the bladed piece of the now detached candy appendage. As soon as it touched the ground it began to writhe and wriggle back towards him, as if it had a mind of its own and was out for bloody vengeance!
With a golf swing of his mace, Commander Hurricane connected with the tendril fragment and sent it hurtling into the bonfire. There was a tiny scream and a puff of green smoke as the candy caught fire and shriveled up into a charred black squiggle. Then it was gone.
"Just cutting a piece of her off isn't enough." Hurricane advised, "Throw any bits you manage to tear off into the fire! Otherwise it will just rejoin with her in time."
"Thanks for the update," hissed Flash, doing his best to quickly tie a makeshift tourniquet with his torn cloak around his wounded leg. The cuts were ragged and deep and he risked bleeding out if he did not act fast. "Anything else you care to share before she finishes tearing us apart?"
During this time, the Candy Mare had melted back into the shadows but instead of laughter it was the sound of screams as she ranted and raved that split the night.
She was clearly unhappy about losing a part of herself to the hungry flames.
"I was only going to torment you a little. Just to give your meat that sweet tang of terror. I would have killed you swiftly, like I did with your friends, but that shield of yours actually managed to hurt me!" growled the Candy Mare in a guttural fashion that was very unfilly-like indeed. For once, she sounded very much like the monster she truly was. "You feather brained pegasus. Now I'm going to make you suffer!"
"Sticks and stones," Flash shot back weakly. He didn't let the promises of doom distract him, however, staying vigilant for where the next attack might come from. He wouldn't be caught out twice, if he could help it. The immediacy of the pain of his injured leg helped him to focus on his enemies movements and ignore her words. If he truly had enraged her, then the next attack would likely be aimed at him and it would be coming very soon.
Only it didn't.
The trees stopped their shaking.
The ever present laughter faded to silence.
The snow which had been falling steadily faster began to fill the air in earnest, an audible hiss drowning out every other sound as the fat feathery flakes softly piled up on the ground. Every trace of blood or viscera was quickly covered in a blanket of white. Visibility quickly dropped from poor to none at all as the storm grew serious and the two soldiers were engulfed by the resulting blizzard.
The fire did nothing to aid them now, as White Out conditions took their field of vision down to zero. These circumstances could prove fatal in even the best of times, but in the middle of pitched battle against a supernaturally fast and strong enemy? There was almost nothing that could be worse.
Flash tugged his cloak tight around himself and stated the obvious, "We're in trouble now."
"One of us needs to fly up and bust the storm, or we're done for," agreed Hurricane. "Your younger, faster. You do it. I'll stay here and try to distract her. You should take the chance to get clear.”
"No," the legionnaire declined, hefting his shield. "This is the only thing that has done any real damage to her so far. Even if I were to go, it's obvious that I'm still going to be her target as long as I have this. You take care of the storm as best you can. I'll hold her off until you get back."
The commander locked eyes with the cadet through the swirling storm, "I'm not the cloud buster I used to be. Losing my legs saw to that as surely as what she did to my wings. I do good to manage a hover these days."
"Then hover out of here and bring back some reinforcements," Flash replied in a harsh whisper. "It's obvious we're out-matched here. If her attention is on me then we need to use that to our advantage."
The older pony hesitated, but nodded. "Keep your back to the fire and stay as close to it as you can. She won't be able to come at you through the flames. Singe your tail off if you have to, and keep that shield up and at the ready. There's no telling what dirty tricks she'll try next."
"Yes sir!" barked the cadet brusquely, taking position so he was silhouetted against the blaze, armor gleaming as if it was fresh out of the forge. For the briefest of moment he looked like a phoenix, wreathed in flames and snow that drifted like falling ash, "On your way sir!"
He needn't have said anything. Hurricane was already gone, lost beyond the wall of white and well out of earshot.
The silence that followed was somehow more chilling than the snowstorm itself.
Flash could feel the fur on his back curling and smell the stench of burning hair as he hovered as close to the crackling flames as he dared.
Beneath the stink of his own singed hide there was another scent which turned Flash's stomach even further. It rose from the dead body of his mentor, Commander Ironhead, who had collapsed too close to the roaring blaze. The sweet stench of roasting pony forced Flash to fight down waves of nausea as he tried to focus his other senses on detecting his enemy's movements. Though the snow would most likely distort any sounds, identifying the approach of the Candy Mare was likely the only chance he would have at defending himself.
So Flash strained his ears, swiveling them about, trying to catch even the barest hint of what direction violent death might be advancing from.
Crunch, crunch...
There, what was that!?
It was low and anyone who wasn't listening specifically for it would have likely missed it, but it was the unmistakable sound of hooves crunching through snow! It was slower and quieter than Flash had expected. It seemed like the Candy Mare was taking her time, creeping up on him cautiously.
She was taking this seriously now, despite her anger, no longer recklessly throwing herself at her prey.
Dealing with a beast was bad enough, but a beast that could think, reason, and learn from its mistakes was seriously the worst news.
She already out classed him in speed and strength, so if she managed to defeat him in a battle of wits as well then it was all over.
Crunch-crunch.
The sound came again, but this time slightly off to the right. Was she trying to circle around behind him?
Crunch-crunch-crunch.
Wait, that had come from the left. Had she realized he had heard her and was trying to switch tactics? To what end?
Crunch!
No, that couldn't be right, that was right in front of him!
The sound was suddenly coming from every direction at once!
But that wasn't as terrifying as the moan that rose from right behind him!
As Flash turned he had just a brief glimpse of Ironhead's corpse engulfed in flames as it lunged at him!
It was only by instinct that Flash brought his shield around and smashed it into the side of the ponies head and sent him sprawling back into the fire. The mournful sound that rose from his dead commanders ruined throat as the tongues of fire consumed him completely was unlike any sound he'd ever heard any pony make before. The aroma of burning flesh was overpowering as the commander's fat sizzled and melted, bubbling away in the snow. Perhaps the old stallion had drank one too many mugs of hot cocoa?
Flash had no time to make sense of the horror of his commander's sudden resurrection and destruction, as multiple shapes loomed out of the wall of snow. Their eye sockets were hollowed out and their jaws hung open and slack just as the corpse of Ironhead's had. However unlike him their bodies were mismatched things, clearly jumbled together in some haste and held together only by twitching black and red tendrils of licorice. This candy thread seemed to pull them along as well, making them lurch awkwardly, their hooves barely touching the ground. They moved surprisingly quickly, floating over the snow, groaning painfully as they flew at the bewildered pegasus!
The soldier whirled, bashing his shield into the corpses as they came. He drove them back as best he could, though their hooves scrabbled against his armor time and time again, trying to drag him down. He couldn't fly away now even if he had wanted to, as every time he tried to dart away a fresh corpse would pull him down to the ground while it’s fellows blocked out the sky.
Now that they were so close, It didn’t take long for Flash to figure out who his attackers were. The Candy Mare was using his dead comrades to attack him, holding together their ripped apart remains with her foul candy strings as if they were nothing more than grizzly marionettes to dance to her tune. Where he could, Flash used the edge of his shield to try and cut the strings that were manipulating their movements, but more often he sliced off a head or a limb instead. That did little to slow them down as headless and limbless cadavers simply tottered backwards into the snow to re-emerge moments later with fresh replacements. Faces and bodies of his dead friends swapped back and forth as swiftly as he could drive them back, any damage he managed to deal instantly repaired!
This was beyond the worst case scenerio.
As the battle wore on, the lips of the severed heads began to twitch and twist on their own. The corpse's empty eye sockets began to glow as if illuminated from within by some infernal magical light. They smiled rotten jack-o-lantern grins and displayed broken and jagged teeth, At last they started to laugh, dry as leaves shivering in the autumn breeze, sending ice water dripping down Flash's spine despite his proximity to the bonfire.
Then they began to sing...
"Nightmare Night..."
"What a Fright..."
"Give us Something..."
"Something?"
"Something Sweet..."
"Something... Sweet... to... Bite!"
Before Flash's horror struck eyes the jigsaw pieces of his friends body parts began a chilling metamorphosis! Hard crystalline growths began to cover their limbs, knitting them together more completely than the Candy Mare's stitch-craft had managed. A strange substance spilled from their gaping wounds to engulf their blood slick bodies. It was something, at first, that Flash could not identify but as the smell of it struck him like a physical wall there was no mistaking what it was...
It was candy.
That overpowering sugary aroma was something he was fast becoming familiar with. Fresh, shiny candy that flooded the gaps in their mismatched bodies and grew into plates of armor and wickedly curved spikes and hooks. Chocolate, caramel, cookies, wafers, hard candies and taffy spilled from their insides to coat their outsides in uncanny candy splendor!
As the freshly minted candied ghouls new exoskeletons solidified their movements became faster, more powerful, and more precise. They also became more vicious, changing from trying to grab hold of Flash to actively attempting to tear him apart! Their laughter grew louder along with the unnatural light that blazed brighter in their eyes. That eerie glow came in every color and hue as they darted in and out of Flash's field of vision. Liquid candy drizzled from the candied corpse's once hollowed out eye sockets, twin rivulets that splattered Flash with their sticky pink filth. Suddenly the once slack mouths were filled with jagged teeth that gleamed darkly in the half light, drool leaking from salivating maws that snapped mere inches from his face!
Flash Magnus was on the verge of being eaten alive by the very dead friends he had not even had a chance to mourn!
His fellow legionnaires were no longer puppets, but had been reborn as beasts just as sick and deadly as the creature who had killed them! Flash's muscles were sore and his bones were shivering with ever blow his shield took from the slavering dead. Were it not for Netitus he would have already been shredded to ribbons and devoured long ago. As it was, he put his all into merely defending himself, as there were no openings for him to fight back. If he lowered his shield for even a moment it would be all over for the brave pegasus. The grotesque ghouls were driving him back, inch by inch, into the fire that had so recently consumed Commander Ironhead. Flash could see his feathers blackening and curling away in the wintry wind!
Did they mean to feed him to the flames the way Commander Hurricane had fed that small fragment of the Candy Mare but moments ago?
Was this her petty idea of revenge for that comparatively minor slight?
If that were the case, Flash Magnus would never know, for a sudden hail of arrows peppered the ghouls with such force that it hurled them away from Flash and snapped their heads backwards!
"Second volley!" cried a clear and commanding voice. Another wave of arrows drove back the undead horde as they tried to recover. This was followed with another command, "Hold your fire! Advanced unite, charge!"
From the wall of snow erupted the gleaming armored forms of the Royal Canterlot Guard's, each brandishing a long gleaming spear! Without hesitation they impaled the candy ghouls, lifting their twitching, snarling bodies high into the air. Though the beast still thrashed at the end of the soldier’s weapons, the war ponies stood firm, not letting the creatures advance or retreat. The undead were trapped now. That was when a sudden explosion of heat and fury fell from above engulfing the monsters in a golden light that swept away the curtain of snow for miles around!
The light blazed as if the stormy night had ceased to exist and was replaced instead by brilliant day! The radiance that spilled over Flash was warm and welcome, and seemed to revitalize his weary body. Indeed, he could even feel the wounds on his leg tingle and his flesh healed and knit itself back together before his eyes! In moments, all that was left were a few fading scars to mark where his injury had been.
For the shocked and surprised candy ghouls's, however, the radiance had no such rejuvenating effects - Quite the opposite actually. The candy that held their bodies together melted and evaporated, causing the chunks of dismembered pony to slough away like muddy soil. The eldritch glow faded from their eyes as the golden glow invaded their skulls, causing their twisted songs to die on their blood stained lips. Whatever unholy power had animated them seemed to flee more swiftly than it had came. The revealed dismembered pegasi looked rather sad piled in a slurry of sludgy melted sugar, but expression of relief graced those heads which were still lucky enough to have a face. It seemed as though the dead, too, were relieved to be defeated.
Casting his eyes to the heavens, Flash Magnus couldn't help but smile from as he saw the massive white wings and the multicolored mane of his descending savior; The monarch of Equestria, Princess Celestia, had arrived! It was from her that the divine glow had emanated that healed wounds and laid low those who should, by all rights, be deceased. That explained why it felt like the summer sun was kissing Flash's face when mere moments ago the freezing grasp of encroaching death had chilled him to the bone.
Celestia was not alone, however, as her sister Princess Luna descended alongside her. The pair were accompanied by an entire host of Royal Canterlot Guards! Among them Flash caught the welcome sight of several more familiar faces - His friends were here too, each of them a legendary hero in their own right, the Guardians of Harmony! Starswirl the Bearded, Somnambula, Rockhoof, Mistmane, Mage Meadowbrook, and even little Stygian were all here!
Flash felt his wings fail him and his knees go weak as he collapsed to the ground, his shield sticking firmly into the muddy earth beside him. Relief flooded his weary form.
He was saved!
And there, coming from the rear was Commander Hurricane. He'd come through with reinforcements after all!
"Glad to see you back Commander," Flash said breathlessly, leaning against his shield for support. He wasn't sure if he was more lightheaded from fighting for his life or from the feeling of being snatched from the jaws of death, and frankly he didn't care. "What took you so long?"
There was no relief on Hurricane’s serious face, however. “Quiet, Cadet. We're not done here"
“Was our trap successful Starswirl?” asked Celestia in a calm dulcet tone quite at odds with the sight of so many corpses strewn around her. “Has the threat of the Candy Mare been eliminated?”
With a swish of his cloak, and a jingle of bells sewn into its hem, the old unicorn surveyed the scene. Regrettably, his eyes told the story before he said even a single word.
“I will have to examine the bodies to be sure, your grace,"answered Starswirl. "But it does not appear to be so. I fear that the Candy Mare has escaped us once again.”
A column of smoke rose into the sky, ash taking the place of falling snow as the soft grey flakes floated gently back to earth.
This far north there was no way to permanently break the storm. If there were then there would have never been a need for the tribes to seek out a new land to live in. High above, the pegasi of the Royal Canterlot Guard fought an unending battle against the weather, busting clouds and driving back the storm so all the soldiers diligently working below could continue without fear of dampness slowing their progress. It took a consistent and very hot flame to cremate a body, and even hotter flames to burn and break up the chunks of bone. Given the number of dead they would be at it throughout the night, sending the Cloudsdale Pegasi up into the clouds one last time on puffs of smoke.
Flash Magnus had mixed feelings about the funeral pyre of his battalion. He was grateful that their remains would no longer be defiled by whatever foul power the Candy Mare had used to turn them against him. He was also happy to warm his bruised body by their blazing glow after the freezing conditions he had been forced to endure while fighting. But these were still his friends that were roasting on an open fire, like so many chestnuts, their flesh browning and blackening as they were charred beyond recognition then allowed to crumble away to nothing at all. To say it was diquieting would be an understatement.
The Royal Guards set about their tasks with the finely tuned precision of a well oiled machine. It seemed like they had been doing this for awhile now. He felt no ill will towards the guards who carried out their duty. They had become expert at the destruction of corpses by this method, though that was little comfort to Flash. That the Candy Mare's murders had been so numerous that they had grown this efficient at the disposal of her victims gave him pause. How many ponies had vanished into smoke? How many more would have to be burned before this was all over? Did such a pyre wait in Flash's own future? That thought made the flames feel a little less warm against the winter chill.
What exactly had been going on all this time? How had they managed to keep the shear enormity of this thing under wraps? Worse, what other secrets had been kept from him? There were far too many questions and not enough answers, Flash decided.
The last of the bodies had been examined some time ago and, as Starswirl had expected, none of them appeared to belong to the quarry they had hoped to snare in their trap. Far from being disappointed, the Princesses had seemed excited by this news. That this folly had cost the lives of the Cloudsdale Legion and had nearly cost Flash his own didn't seem to bother them in the least, which rankled the pegasus far more than being kept in the dark. Like a good soldier, however, he held his tongue. He wanted answers and he would not likely get them if he flew into a rage at the callous disregard for the common soldier that command appeared to be exhibiting. Then he'd just remain as clueless as he was angry.
No, he'd bide his time for now.
Not long after they had gathered up all the body parts, a platoon of soldiers had set about erecting a large tent city in the clearing. Along with it they had raised a pavilion for the princesses to lounge beneath. Starswirl and the other Guardians of Harmony were meant to have a meeting with them shortly to discuss their intel and work out their next move. If the information Flash wanted was to be made available it would most likely be at this meeting. His best bet was to act as if nothing was wrong, but pay sharp attention to what was said and who was saying it. Once he had a better grasp of the situation then he'd decide on the when, how, and if he should act.
At the moment, however, it took a great deal of restraint to keep from lashing out at Commander Hurricane at the very least. His eyes bored into the officers back, but if he noticed then he didn't seem to be interested in sparing even a glance in Flash's direction. Far from bringing reinforcements to save the lone surviving legionnaire, it seemed his survival was happenstance and whether Flash had lived or not didn't matter to the old bastard in the least. Instead he was more focused on what had happened with the Candy Mare, and where his prey may have gotten to while he was away signalling the trap to close.
So far it seemed all the rumors Flash had heard about the formerly well respected officer losing his mind and employing methods best described as insane seemed to all have been quite true. It was only his insistence that the plan Flash had just barely survived was not entirely his own that kept him from kicking Hurricane's flank here and now. The commander, for his part, had sunk into sullen silence once it had been confirmed that his quarry was nowhere to be found. He was more upset that the Candy Mare had escaped than at loss of life his failed mission had resulted in.
Flash could stew about that later. The chiming of distant bells informed him that the meeting was about to begin,
Beneath the tent pavilion a large table and chairs had been placed and a small magical brazier burned in the center of the table spreading warmth well beyond the bounds of a normal non-magical flame. Celestia was nursing a steaming cup of tea while daintily wiping away the crumbs of a slice of cake she had gobbled down. Luna, in contrast, seemed disinterested in her tea and her baked treat. Instead her eyes followed the disciplined movements of the Night Guard who were assisting the weather team high above.
Flash Magnus and Commander Hurricane arrived for the meeting at the same time as Starswirl and the other Guardians. It seemed even Stygian had been invited to take part in the meeting, although what help the scrawny scribe might offer in this situation was anypony's guess. Maybe he was allowed to attend simply to take down the minutes? After all, it was his usual role to record for posterity the adventurous deeds of the legendary ponies he called his friends.
"I and the other unicorns have scoured the area for several miles around with our most potent scrying spells and still we can find no trace of the Candy Mare," Starswirl began the meeting abruptly, brusquely informing all gathered of yet more bad news. "It is difficult to follow her taint in these already tainted lands, but will have mages around the clock attempting to do just that."
"Her rage and hatred have certainly left their mark," assured Mistmane, her eyes vibrant despite her frail appearance. "It is as if her madness has seeped into the land itself. The refuse of anguish and despair that she leaves in her wake is spread far and wide here. All that grows around us is sapped of joy and beauty by the horrors that they have witnessed. The snow and ice in this land cover atrocities best left undisturbed, but these events act like load-stones, distorting and thwarting our attempts to trace their maker. It may take some time to find the one we seek despite her nearby proximity."
"It's like the original lands of the pony tribes themselves have grown sick," chimed in Mage Meadowbrook, the mask she so often wore muffling her voice only slightly. "The infection has spread far and wide. If the land itself were my patient, I would say they were too far gone to be saved and that putting them down would be the only merciful thing to do. The Candy Mare is truly a cancer. One that, if allowed to spread unchecked, will bring only misery and death to the rest of Equestria."
"Unfortunately this 'Mare of Candy' seems to be neither cancer to be excised nor sickness to be quelled, but rather a malefic curse given form," boomed Rockhoof, a bit more loudly than he really needed to given the small nature of the gathering. "There are stories passed down by my clan from the very founding of the Mighty Helm of our ancestors facing such creatures in the bygone days of yore. Draugar they were known as in our ancient tongue, or 'aptrganga', the again walkers! Such creatures are bringers of only ruin and terror. Destroying them was said to never be an easy task, mind you, but one of utmost urgency!"
"Is destruction, then, the only way to deal with such a being? Can she not be reasoned with? Or at least outwitted?" asked Somnambula, thoughtful as always. "Yes she is a creature of great madness and rage, no doubt, but her own pain and sorrow are palpable as well. Fighting her may just be giving her the outlet for her grief that she so desperately craves. Finding a way to instead turn her emotions against her and exploit them may be a surer path to her defeat. Suppression may prove more effective than attempts at her destruction."
"Such speculation seems wildly premature, given how readily the Candy Mare has fled from our very presence" replied Celestia, though with a gentleness and magnanimity that mellowed any harshness in the rebuke of Somnambula's conjecture. "What do the two ponies who have actually come face to face with this monster have to say on the matter?"
"Come face to face with her, and yet still live to tell the tale where all others have so far perished," muttered Princess Luna to herself, though in a stage whisper loud enough for everypony present to hear. "How... Fortunate."
Commander Hurricane awkwardly cleared his throat and, ignoring the comment, quickly gave his assessment. "The Candy Mare is less plague or curse than she is a beast, but an exceedingly clever one. Wiley and ferocious, she is not easily lured by docile prey but prefers to hunt. Illusion and guile are her weapons of choice, but brutality and terror are wielded by her just as expertly. I agree with Rockhoof that stamping her out will not be easy, but it is a necessity for Equestria if our fledgling nation is to survive. Compared to more ethereal creatures like the Windigo who can be defeated with magic, she is unfortunately too elusive for such powerful yet imprecise remedies like the Fire of Friendship to be effective. Although, as you demonstrated so well Princess, it is more than enough to deal with the candy ghouls she sometimes creates to attack in her stead. As to trying some method of talking with her or attempting to turn her emotions against her, I must advise against it. She is blind with hatred and insanity, conversing with her only serves to give her opportunity to infect others with her mental illness. Merely suppressing her would not be enough to safeguard Equestria. She is no amalgamated monstrosity or rogue princeling from a foreign realm to be thrown into a cage in Tartarus and left to molder. Anything short of her absolute destruction would be entirely too precarious to allow."
"Too precarious to allow, or simply unacceptable to you personally Commander?" spat Princess Luna, turning her gaze from the sky for the first time to glare at the officer. "All gathered here know of your loss and of your own hatred and 'mental illness'. It is without question that you have a personal stake in seeing the Candy Mare obliterated. That was why my sister so graciously gave you authority to pursue this matter, but despite the escalating desperation of your methods it has been over a year since you set out to complete this task. It is high time we saw some results!"
The commander grimaced, but before he could say a word in his own defense it was Stygian's gentle voice that spoke out next. "It took me many long days and lonely nights to rally the ponies gathered here to defend my village from the Sirens that plagued it. I cannot imagine the suffering they put my fellow ponies through in my absence, but I was powerless to aid them on my own. Though Commander Hurricane has had the aid of the many soldiers under his command, expecting him to deal with the kind of monstrosity that you have all described, on his own, seems a Sisyphean labor that nopony could hope to accomplish. I do not doubt that he looks upon the current situation now with jaded eyes, but his words should not be dismissed. Nor should those of our stalwart companion Flash Magnus. What have you to say, oh brave hero? Having faced the mortal peril of this fiend in combat, how best do you think we should deal with the challenge posed to us by the Candy Mare?"
Sometimes Flash forgot how compassionate and compelling the small unicorn could be. He had brought the Guardians of Harmony together, after all, with nothing but his words to convince them that their united force was needed by their fellow equines. At times he could be quite long winded, but when Stygian felt the need to make a point his loquacious nature was often more boon than foible. For the moment, even Princess Luna's ire seemed to have been curbed as well as Hurricane's obvious discomfort.
Ever the peacemaker Stygian had expertly shifted the conversation away from the lack of success, and the blame there-for, and back to the present question of how to deal with the problem that was staring them all down...
If only Flash had something as elequint to say.
"It seems like nearly everypony here is better informed than I am," He began, Flash choosing his words carefully. "Having only just learned of this creature and witnessed her power and cruelty first hoof, I have to admit I don't really know what to make of her. One moment she plays at being the innocent child and the next she is a machine designed only to kill. I feel she is less a beast than a force of nature, bending reality itself around her to extract the utmost hopelessness and dread from her opponents. It's clear she isn't interested in simply murdering her victims, but extracting as much suffering from them as possible. Maybe she's trying to inflict the suffering she herself has experienced, or maybe she's just a sadistic devil that gets a kick out of toying with others lives. I'm not really comfortable with speculating about it. Destroy her, suppress her, or reason with her - Whatever you can do to make this madness stop I'm all for it! But throwing away other ponies lives on a solution that's not a sure thing is where I have to draw the line. I don't want to see any more soldiers torn apart and brought back in a mockery of unlife to torment their comrades. Nothing is worth subjecting our friends to that fate."
A beatific smile, like that of a divine goddess looking upon her prized creation graced the lips of Celestia as she turned her full attention to the last surviving legionnaire. "So I take it you did not approve of our plans? The loss of your battalion, while regrettable, was a possibility that we did not entertain lightly. If it fell to you to put your life on the line, to stand between Equestria and the Candy Mare, would you do no less Flash Magnus? Or would you fight without hesitation, brave hero of legend?"
Put like that, he could hardly argue, though he doubted that the rest of the battalion had been given such a choice. If they had known that their lives were at such great risk for the sake of Equestria when they had been sent on their scouting mission, it's possible they would have refused to go. Commander Ironhead had certainly seemed to have been caught off guard by the revelation that they were to be used as such disposable pawns. But, at the end of the day, it was their duty to fight and die if need be in the defense of Equestria. That was undeniable.
"Of course your grace. I would stand as a bulwark against any looming storm that threatened our great nation," replied Flash, bowing low, before adding "Though I would hope to be informed of its coming before it broke upon my shield."
"I must apologize for that my friend," Starswirl intervened, his voice thick and grave. "It was I who decided to keep information about the Candy Mare on a need to know basis. It was hoped that you would be brought into these affairs only as a last resort along with the rest of the Pillars of Harmony, but I did not account for Commander Ironhead's great trust and reliance upon you. You should have been briefed long before setting hoof into this chaos, and for that I most ardently beg your pardon and offer my most sincere apologies."
"Yes, yes, we're all so very sorry for our screw ups," snapped Princess Luna, almost growling her words. "It seems that we have been afflicted with blunders and oversights from the very beginning. Regrettably, no amount of apologies will give the dead back their lives, nor get us any closer to resolving this mess!"
"Dear sister, you seem greatly agitated. Is there perhaps something you wish to say that you have left unspoken?" queried Celestia, the very model of politesse, though the twitch of one eyebrow indicated that beneath the serene surface the Princess of the Sun was also growing agitated.
"There are dreamers out there that need me sister! Every moment we stalk this fiend through the night is one more moment that I am torn away from my duties," replied Luna, her mask of anger slipping slightly to reveal desperation beneath. "Already all eyes turn to you, the beacon of daylight that all the stars in the sky fail to outshine. Everypony turns towards you as a flower turns towards the rising sun. If I cannot even help them in their dreams, nor safeguard them in their waking hours, what good am I to them? I know I am already considered the lesser princess... The spare..."
"Luna! No pony thinks of you that way," chided Celestia, more like a mother scolding the outburst of an unruly child than a sister offering comfort to a distressed sibling.
"Don't lie!" hissed Luna. "I hear them whisper when they think I can't hear. I see their dreams. I know what they think of me! I am supposed to be the guardian of the night. The warden of the darkness between dusk and dawn. This Candy Mare stalks my night and I am powerless to do anything to stop her or to save them! All who learn of her existence are plagued by her in their nightmares and haunted by her during their waking hours. Every moment she continues to exist, I am a failure! I - I don't know what to do..."
"Perhaps now would be a good time to take a little break," interrupted Celestia, rising from her seat and guiding Luna gently but firmly away from the meeting."I am afraid I am not used to staying up this late and my sister clearly needs a moment to calm herself."
"I am calm!" insisted Luna emphatically, her eyes flashing with anger. "So very calm!"
"Maybe eat a banana then sister," retorted Celestia, dropping her genteel manner. "You know you're not yourself when your blood sugar gets low!"
Luna harrumphed. Flash had never heard anypony make that noise in person before, but it sounded exactly how it was spelled. "I'm not hungry!" whined the younger alicorn.
"Even so, you are not behaving properly little moon," assured Celestia bluntly. "You're letting your fears get the better of you. We cannot afford to show such weakness at a time like this. Just... go to your tent for now, okay!"
The Princess of the Night looked at her sister coldly and for a moment it appeared that she might refuse, but then with a frustrated sigh she spread her wings and flew off to her quarters.
With that, the meeting broke up and each pony went their separate ways, leaving just Flash and Celestia beneath the pavilion. The princess heaved a world weary sigh and, in that moment, the legionnaire could almost see the weight of the world bearing down on the alicorn's shoulders.
Even so, the smile returned to Celestia's face as she glanced back at the soldier over her shoulder, "To think, just last year at this time we were so concerned with preparations for the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, not plotting the downfall of a supernatural serial killer made of candy. You should eat and rest as well, my little pony. I'm afraid you will be called on to speak more when we next meet, and I would not want you to be as anxious and fretful as my dear sister when that time comes."
Not far away were the sounds of soldier's, clinking cutlery and raised voices, along with the the varied and complex smells of whatever was cooking outside of the mess tent. The sudden, short barks of laughter at bawdy jokes and the steady susurrous of distant conversation played delicately just on the edge of hearing. Out here, away from the glow of campfires and the warmth of her comrades, the winter wind felt like it had more bite to it, sinking its chilling teeth deep into Sugar Plum's flanks.
"I hate pulling night watch," she moaned to herself. "Of course they send the only Earth Pony in the regiment out here to freeze her tail off..."
It wasn't that earth ponies were kept out of the Royal Guard, or even that they had a hard time getting in, it was just that since most of them had spent their lives farming so there weren't many who were of a military mind. Sugar Plum had mainly joined up for the promise of a warm cot to sleep in and three square meals a day, which was a good deal after you'd spent several seasons starving in the snow of the old lands. But it had to be said that unicorns and pegasi were generally what one thought of when they imagined war-like ponies, and because of that it felt like earth ponies like Sugar Plum came up for things like 'lookout', 'latrine duty' or 'night watch' more often than her horned and winged counterparts.
It was bad enough having to remain vigilant for long hours while everypony else was resting, but it was worse on this sort of mission in the savage north. She wasn't allowed any sort of campfire, or even a lantern, for fear of giving away her position. That left her shivering in ice cold armor with nothing more than her cloak wrapped around her to try and keep out the worst of the arctic chill.
Granted, she was not the only pony on duty right now, not by a long shot.
Sugar Plum did have the pegasus corps to thank for holding back the blizzard that still raged around their encampment, otherwise she'd be having to do her job in zero visibility as well as knee deep in snow. Of course some of the unicorns of her battalion were busy casting spells to try and detect any incoming threats of a more magical nature, ever watchful for the kinds of threats there was little hope Sugar Plum would see coming. There were some unicorn's that were also standing by to cast defensive spells at a moments notice, though they were at least on standby in their tents, which she couldn't help but be a little jealous about. Since Sugar Plum could do none of those jobs so it made sense that her duties would be more limited in their variety, but it still rankled her at times like this.
If she paused to think about it, and her experience told her there would be plenty of time to think about it over the course of the long watch, it was the personal guards of Celestia and Luna that she envied the most. They had to be far more vigilant than she did, it was true, but they got to do their duty in the heart of the camp where it was warm and bright. Not out here on the edge of creation staring out into a snowy abyss that, at times, felt like it was gazing right back at her.
The cold alone would have been enough to put anypony in a foul mood, however Sugar Plum had also been warned to guard her heart against such feelings as best she could. There were things this far north that amplified and fed off of those sorts of emotions, using them against the ponies that felt them in the first place. Knowing that she couldn't even be properly upset about her circumstances without potentially making them even worse was beyond frustrating. In short, Sugar Plum could have really used a hug about now - But it was unlikely one would be forthcoming.
So the earth pony stood sentry and, trying her best, attempted to instead think only happy thoughts and turn her mind towards memories of more cheerful days. Like all soldiers do, her thoughts drifted to home. She thought of sun dappled meadows, the sound of a babbling brooks, and the not so distant laughter of children. She thought of the orchard around her family's homestead, the branches heavy with the dark purple fruits that were her namesake, ripening in the boughs as the wind played through the leaves. She could almost smell the rich scent of the delicious produce at harvest time, and it brought a smile unbidden to her cold face.
"Ah... I wish I were there now," she muttered to herself.
Her thoughts turned to how the leaves would turn in the autumn, their green fading to scarlet and then a rich burgundy, before at last being lined with the first hard frost and falling away. They would cover the ground in great mounds that would carpet the earth around her parents home. The rich dark color of the leaves always reminded Sugar Plum of her mother's homemade plum pudding. Her signature dessert was always served piping hot with lots of heavy cream at family gatherings, especially around Hearth's Warming. What the young soldier wouldn't give for one mouthful of that rich, steaming treat right about now. Memories of pulling whole sugared plums from the moist pudding danced in her head as the echo of their taste flitted across her tongue.
For just a moment, Sugar Plum forgot her discomfort and the cold and was instead lost in the experiences of bygone days. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and even the tastes of home felt all too real.
But not as real as the soft crying in the distance.
"What? Huh?" snapping back to reality, Sugar Plum shook herself from her reverie and readied her spear. The tip weaved drunkenly before her for a moment before she firmed up her grip. She couldn't see anything in front of her but a few banks of snow and one or two scraggly trees that had been spared the fiery fate of their brethren. In a louder voice, the soldier called out "Who goes there! Identify yourself!"
There was no reply.
Nothing but silence answered her challenge for the longest of time.
Then there came another sob, choked off as if whoever was crying was trying very hard to stay quiet despite their pain and grief. Whoever was making that sound, they sounded weak, as if they were fading by the moment. Was there perhaps some wounded pony out there, lost and afraid? Maybe some soldier that had survived the Candy Mare's slaughter, but was now too frightened or hurt to seek help? The carnage that had greeted Sugar Plum and the rest of the Royal Guard's arrival had been more than enough to turn her stomach, so it wasn't hard to imagine either being the case if there was somepony out there that had lived through that grizzly fate.
Despite any apprehensions she might have, it was Sugar Plum's duty to investigate.
"Stay where you are, help is on the way!" she called in a clear and confident voice, hoping it would help calm whoever it was that was alone in the dark.
Gathering up her cloak around her more tightly, the soldier left her post and followed the faint sounds of distress deeper into the night. Sugar Plum hadn't gone far, however, before she began to feel doubt nagging at the back of her mind.
What if what she was hearing was just some animal out here, calling to a mate? She'd heard that some big cats could sound like a woman screaming or a baby crying, and it was unwise to track such sounds through the wilds where it was so easy to lose your way.
Having grown up on a farm, she also knew other stories that were told to little ponies to keep them from wondering too far afield in the wee hours between dusk and dawn. Stories about mysterious lights, headless ponies, and monsters that could blend in with the very rocks and trees so that you wouldn't know the danger you were in until you were practically on top of them!
Sugar Plum stopped dead in her tracks as she remembered the stories that concerned the very target of this operation. She was fortunate not to have grown up with those blood curdling tales about the Candy Mare, but those in her unit who had that misfortune all said the same thing about her. The candied cannibal was a fiend made of treats who delighted in playing tricks on those lost or alone.
More than one of her fellows had told tales of unfortunate wanderers being lured out to lonely places only to return to find their houses emptied, the beds that their children had occupied still warm from where their sleeping bodies had lain, though the sheets were now dripping red with fresh blood.
As awful as those implications were, those that told such stories still counted the poor soles who had lost their children as being fortunate, for they had at least lived to tell the tale. After all there were other just as sad stories that were told in schoolyards and orphanages of parents following the sound of singing, or the voice of an old friend, into the night and never returning home at all. It raised a very important question at this moment in time. Exactly how many ponies, just like Sugar Plum, had been lured by some noise or another into the dark never to be heard from again?
How many of them had known the Candy Mare was around before they did?
"Oh horseapples..."
The weight of Sugar Plum's spear suddenly didn't feel so reassuring as it had a moment ago.
She wasn't that far from camp yet, was she? If Sugar Plum turned back now, surely she could make it back to her post with little more than a short trot.
But she could no long hear the sounds of activity from the encampment or even the steady rhythm of pegasi wing-beats that had been coming from high above. As she stood perfectly still, everything around her was so quiet she could almost hear the snow settling under her hooves. It was then she realized that the crying that she had been following had also faded away to silence. Instead, just on the edge of her hearing she thought she could hear a single whispered word...
"...Hungry..."
In a flash Sugar Plum turned to flee, but it was too late!
Just as she turned that something wrapped tight around her limbs, and she knew she'd well and truly screwed up! Her spear was knocked away from her and fell into broken pieces!
Before she could even cry out for help, something thick and sticky clamped tight over her mouth, leaving nothing to escape but a terrified moan. Sugar Plum struggled to free herself from the invisible force that gripped her, but she instead found herself lifted bodily into the air and dragged backwards through the wilderness at high speed! It all happened so fast there wasn't even time to form any sort of rational thought, only instinct and blind animal fear surged through her mind as her hooves scrabbled for purchase in the snow, grabbing vainly at rocks and roots as they whizzed by too fast to hold onto.
She did not struggle for long, however, as she felt herself come to a sudden stop. She hadn't been taken far, although now the glow of the distant camp seemed miles away. As Sugar Plum had reached her apparent destination she was lifted off the ground and dangled upside down, all four limbs stretched out painfully as far as they would go. It wasn't that painful yet, no, but the fearful soldier had a feeling that could change at any moment... Yet it was the smell that grabbed her attention.
It was both appetizing and revolting at the same time.
The air reeked of overripe fruit, burnt caramel, and something far less wholesome that was rotting underneath. The stink of old death hid itself poorly beneath the cloying aroma. The thick burnt stench of spoiled meat and sugar was all pervasive like a thick oily substance that clung to the back of her throat and made her gag. Sugar Plum wondered why she hadn't managed to catch the scent before, but then realized that was because the source had been down wind of her the whole time. Her captor had been clever enough to make sure of that before springing her trap. They were beneath a thick grove of trees that were heavily laden with snow, forming a natural canopy that hid them from even the light of the distant stars above as well as the line of sight of anyone that might help the unfortunate soldier.
It didn't take long for the kidnapped sentry's vision to adjust to the deeper darkness beneath the trees, but when her eyes focused on who was under here with her she wished that they hadn't. Staring up at her was the most grotesque visage she had ever seen. Saying that the thing was pony-like would have been accurate in only the loosest sense. It's hungry eyes were wide and glowing with an unearthly inner light that swirled with palpable madness, hatred, and pain. It ran an ugly black and orange striped tongue over sharp candy corn fangs and seemed to only barely restrain itself from taking a huge bite out of Sugar Plum's face.
The broken shafts of a few arrows poked out of the monsters body here and there, along with a spear head that still jutted from her chest, but that was not the worst of the damage. Half of the things body was charred black, and the rotting stench that filled the air clearly emanated from the pale and lifeless flesh that moldered beneath that peeling outer layers. Half of its skull was exposed and grinned constantly while the other side of the things horrible face grimaced in an unhappy scowl.
At least Sugar Plum could finally see what had grabbed her and now held her limbs. Long red and black licorice that grew like thick locks of hair from the monstrosities ruined head held her limbs fast in a grip like iron. A few stranded were even tied about Sugar Plum's muzzle, which is what had silenced her and kept her from screaming, though those at least did not clamp down quiet so tightly. It seemed the Candy Mare wanted Sugar Plum's mouth intact, and that realization horrified her even more than the monsters mutilated form. The young soldier involuntarily filled her lungs and let loose muffled screams of terror over and over, unable to stop the panic that welled up inside her.
For her part, the Candy Mare only tilted her head to one side, smirking at the Royal Guard's reaction. It appeared that the monster hadn't escaped their ambush entirely unscathed, but the pain she had suffered seemed to have only further fueled her madness and rage. Half fried to a crisp by Celestia's magic as she was, The Candy Mare seemed unperturbed by her own decrepit form. Even as Sugar Plum stared in wide eyed horror at the half charred corpse, she could see that the monsters candy coating was slowly oozing back over the shriveled carcass that made up her core.
The Candy Mare was healing, albeit slowly.
"I normally take my time with things like this," The Candy Mare's voice was thick and wet with half melted candy, but no less terrifying. "But as you can see I am in no state to beat around the bush. So we'll keep things simple. We're going to have a little talk, just us girls. I am going to ask you questions and you are going to give me answers."
"If you lie, you die," whispered a tiny mouth that opened in the abominations throat.
"If you scream, you die, heheh!" giggled another mouth that opened on the ghoul's shoulder.
"And if I don't like your answers, well...hahaha!" guffawed a huge mouth that split open in the horrific things chest, exposing rows of shark like candy corn teeth and a trio of long black and orange tongues.
"You get the idea," finished the Candy Mare with her normal mouth, if you considered the one on her face to be the 'normal' one. "Now I'm going to let you speak. Remember, no screaming. It's not like they'd make it here in time to save you, even if they managed to hear you. Nod if you understand."
Sugar Plum nodded, tears streaming down her upside down face.
"Good girl," replied the Candy Mare, removing the tendrils that were wrapped around her captives face. "Now, what exactly was that tall, white, gangly thing that broke my poor little toy soldiers?"
All was calm. You might even be fooled into thinking all was well, if you didn't know better. Flash's breath came out as a cloud of steam in the late evening air. Though the snow had mostly been cleared away, here at the edge of camp his hooves still crunched through a thick layer of the soft white powder. It would have almost been pleasant if it were not for the thoughts that haunted him.
He should have found somewhere to bunk down and taken advantage of the break as Celestia had suggested. Trying to snatch a little shut eye wouldn't have been the worst idea, if indeed sleep would come. Unfortunately after everything that had happened Flash doubted he'd be having an easy time drifting off to slumber land anytime soon. Not after all the horrors he had witnessed just in the past few hours. With those events so fresh in mind, scenes of bloodshed still appeared to him whenever he shut his eyes. No, sleep wasn't going to come easily to him for some time.
He felt cold in a way that no fire could warm, though he passed campfires aplenty as he had moved through the encampment. Perhaps it was because their flames had been used so recently as pyres for his fallen friends. Maybe the chill of death still clung to those smoldering embers, freezing his spirit no matter how cherry red they glowed. It felt like it would take nothing short of dragon fire for Flash to ever feel warm again. A hollow hope, as the few dragons that ever made their homes this far north had chosen only the highest peaks and the deepest crags to hide themselves away from those who might steel from their hoards.
Perhaps that was why he found himself drawn away from fellow soldiers and friends alike. Maybe he was seeking solitude, trying to protect something fragile yet vital that he didn't quite understand. A solitude that would be denied him, it would seem, as he heard the soft crunch of another pony's hooves coming up behind him.
"It's not safe out here on your own, you know," it was Stygian, a look of concern on the unicorn's face as his words fogged the air.
"And where exactly is safe, my friend?" asked Flash with more bitterness in his voice than even he expected. He kept his eyes firmly locked on the darkness before him, refusing to turn back towards the one who had followed him. "You tend to be our expert when it comes to researching such things. With what I've seen I'm having a hard time believing there is a truly safe place left at all, anywhere, in Equestria."
As the tired soldier's words hung in the silence, the wind picked up in one long morose moan, as if agreeing with him. High above the weather team still did their best, but the circle of starlight was steadily shrinking as the clouds boiled over with cold. It wouldn't be long before they would have to either send up fresh weather busters or give up trying. Even so, Flash could see past the storm to the lights of the Aurora Borialis dancing in long bands of pink, blue, and green; Celestial fire blazing defiantly across the firmament. Yet the beautiful sight did nothing to cheer Flash, and as the air grew colder so too did the pegasi's heart.
What was he doing out here with this sorry excuse for a unicorn? Stygian talked of dangers, but he had never had to face them the way Flash had. Did the insipid little horn-head even understand how many brave and noble pegasi had been sacrificed today? What good was all his research if it could not save them? And really, was Flash any better? What good was calling him a hero, a Guardian, if he couldn't even save his fellow soldiers when it mattered? What good were any of the Pillars of Harmony, if they couldn't prevent such horrors as he had witnessed?
A dark cloud, hatred both for himself and everypony around him, settled over Flash Magnus's heart and soul.
"Flash! Flash, snap out of it!" The wind was howling louder, ripping away Stygian's words so that they only barely reached the ears of the dazed legionnaire. It wasn't until a jolt of magic crackled across Flash's flank that he snapped back to reality.
"Ow! Hey! That hurt!" he yelped, turning at last away from the darkness both outside and within. "What was that for!?"
"Look at yourself, are you alright?" asked Stygian, his face full of agitation.
As Flash took a moment to assess himself, he noticed that frost had begun building up on his legs and hooves as if he had been flying through an ice storm at high altitude. With a shiver he shook the freezing crystals from his limbs and, as he did, the weight on his heart seemed to lift. The vague feelings of loathing he had been experiencing also cleared away in that moment. Far away, the moaning wind sounded like a harsh whinny, high and almost frustrated. A spectral flash of blue lightning leaped away from cloud to cloud.
"Windigo's... They've been stalking us since we arrived here," a weak Flame of Friendship danced at the end of Stygian's horn. It had been this that had gotten Flash's attention and apparently chased away the wraith-like entity that had been trying to influence his thoughts. Flash had been thinking such terrible things about Stygian just moments ago, but his friend had only been looking out for him. "They've been trying to stir up feelings of hatred and despair among the soldiers. Starswirl is doing what he can to keep everyone working together, but those that stray too far from his protective cantrips are easy prey for hungry spirits."
"I'm sorry Stygian, I should have known," apologized Flash, chagrined. Even legendary heroes could make mistakes, "Would that we were all so well studied as you when it came to such malevolent creatures."
"I'm working on that actually!" Stygian replied, his features brightening. Reaching inside his cloak he produced what appeared to be a half finished journal thick with bookmarks and notes, loose leaflets of paper fluttering in the breeze. "I've steadily been compiling a compendium that gathers information on all of the folklore and legends we've come across on our travels. If it were made freely available as a kind of guidebook, the information I've been able to glean concerning such supernatural creatures that regularly appear in those stories could be vital. I was going to publish it under the name 'Super Naturals', but I discovered that title was already taken by a recently released herbologist index."
"Does your grimoire contain information about the Candy Mare?" asked Flash, intrigued.
"Oh yes, of course," assured Stygian, smiling at his friend as he showed interest in the subject of his studies for the first time. "I know Starswirl wants to keep information about her restricted, but I don't think there's any harm in making a record of the rumors that are already circulating in the populace. In these pages are all of the myths and factoids related to her, even down to a recipe for the very candies that were supposedly used in her creation!"
"You may want to include a warning along with such information," cautioned the soldier warily. "We wouldn't want someone going and creating another creature like her."
"Oh, oh yes, of course!" it was the scholars turn to be chagrined. Stygian took out a quill and scribbled a few quick notes, his face darkening slightly as he blushed with embarrassment. "Obviously I won't include any of the spells that Lemon Drop supposedly used. That would just be reckless. Just the tricks he played and the terrible treats he used to lure the victims of his experiments."
"Are you crafting a grimoire of supernatural creatures or a manuscript of old tricks and treats?" asked Flash wryly, half joking.
"Ye Olde Tricks and Treats!? Why didn't I think of that? That might actually make a decent title," quipped Stygian to himself. "Let me write that down."
"Hah! If you go with that one, I'll expect my cut of your profits for giving you the idea," laughed Flash, his grim mood lightening.
A moment ago laughing was the very last thing Flash felt he'd ever be able to do again. But now, as he turned his gaze up to the sky once more to watch the glow of the Polar Lights, he was starting to feel a bit like his old self again. It was amazing what chatting with a good friend could do for even the blackest of moods. Flash never should have tried to bear the burden of his trauma on his own, but that was just what he did sometimes.
As he took in the sight of the clouds and the stars beyond them, his eyes widened as they caught a glimpse of what moved between them. What he had taken for the aurora at first had now resolved into the shapes of great spectral stallions galloping in a circle around the encampment. They were keeping just inside of the barely restrained storm clouds, but every now and then you could see their ghostly forms melt through the rumbling storm. It was clear that they were watching, waiting to claim what sustenance they could.
In that moment, a thought occurred to Flash,"Do you think they are working together? The Windigos and the Candy Mare I mean?"
"Helping her? I don't think so. Their behavior strikes me as being more like scavengers, waiting for a moment of opportunity." Stygian finished scribbling down his books new title and then flipped to a page in his journal that contained a crude drawing of the wintry wights. "My studies seem to indicate that they behave like a pack of jackals or a flock of vultures, circling, waiting expectantly as their prey grows weak. Although I suppose they might also gather if a greater predator were on the prowl, waiting for them to do the hard work for them so that they could then swoop in and feed on any stricken left overs."
That thought sent a shiver down Flash's already chilled spine. "I forget sometimes just how dangerous Equestria is for us little ponies. No matter what great things we may accomplish, there may always be something terrible like those beasts waiting out in the dark, ready to pounce."
"I'm afraid that's something I have had the opportunity to learn all too well, my brave friend," Stygian wrapped his cloak tighter against the winter chill, looking somehow smaller than ever. "All my research has made it abundantly clear that the average pony is far outmatched by a great number of vicious entities eager to prey upon us. Not all of us have magic shovels or mystic shields to protect ourselves with either."
"Oh Stygian, not that old song and dance again..." groaned Flash. This was a complaint that the Pillars had heard often from their scholarly unicorn friend. It seemed to be coming up all the more frequently as time went on.
"But I'm certain if I had a magical artifact of my own I could be so much more helpful to you and the other Guardians!" insisted Stygian. "I've been studying up on the subject, delving into ancient tomes on enchanted items, and I'm convinced that if I could just borrow the power of your artifacts I could..."
But before he could continue Flash cut him off.
"Stygian, you are already a huge help to myself and the other Guardians," he insisted. "When would we have the time to research and plan strategies for dealing with the foes we face, or write about our own exploits between harrowing adventures? Those are vital things only you can do! Besides, Starswirl made it clear that siphoning off the magic from our artifacts could damage them irreparably. Then what would we do the next time Sirens took over a village or some mad pony tried to conquer the world?"
Stygian would not let Flash stymie his words, however, and he tried his best to press the issue, "Even so, I believe that the potential benefits would far outweigh the risk! If you would all just listen to -"
"Wait, do you hear that?" asked Flash holding up a hoof to silence his companion. "Shh, be quiet Stygian... Listen. Do you hear what I hear?"
The wind had calmed down and the howls of the Windigos had faded into the distance. However, this was no silent night. In the freezing shadows something was stirring. As Flash and Stygian listened intently, the silvery glow of a full moon beamed down from a break in the clouds, giving the luster of midday to the snowy land below. They couldn't see a single soul for miles... But they could hear them.
Hushed voices, speaking quietly, urgently.
There was laughter and ... Was that a scream, cut off with a sudden crunch?
Suddenly the sound swelled! They could hear so many voices now; laughing, singing, shouting! A great chorus of voices rising in the night! A song came crashing down from on high, roaring like the sea.
"What is that?" whispered Flash, unable to fully process what he was hearing.
"Oh no! I've read about this! We have to go back, right now!" warned Stygian as he turned on his heels and broke into a gallop. "Hurry!"
He didn't need to tell Flash twice as the soldier took to his wings and quickly followed his friend back into the heart of the camp. The voices faded behind them as they fled, but even as the crackle of flames from the nearby bonfires offered them some comfort, the murmuring voices of an unseen throng were still just barely perceptible at the edge of their hearing. Stygian came to a stop, huffing and puffing with exertion. He was apparently satisfied with their relative safety, at least enough to resume speaking.
"It's her - The Candy Mare! One of her tricks," explained the unicorn, doing his best to catch his breath. "The stories say she can steal the voices of those she's killed and use them the way an angler fish uses it's light to lure prey. She can sound like long lost comrades or your foalhood friend, or even a lost child, anypony she has devoured! She sings in the voices of the dead, calling out for fresh victims! Sometimes ponies answer her and disappear over night only for their own voices to be added to her choir the next evening, to sing and call out to the friends they left behind and try to convince them to follow after them...”
"By the Dragon Lord's Bloodstone Scepter, that's diabolical!" exclaimed Flash, "Should we rouse the others? Let them know the Candy Mare has returned? We should track her down and put a stop to this!"
"It's no good," Stygian advised, putting a hoof on his friends shoulder to hold him back. "It’s said she has a way of throwing her voice. She could be miles away or standing right behind you. The Candy Mare is just trying to torment us. Playing mind games. Our time would be better spent warning the ponies on sentry duty not to investigate any strange noises that they might hear. Anyone who strays too far tonight is as good as dead, but so long as we stay in camp I don't think she'll risk a direct attack. We should be safe."
"Do you feel safe Stygian?" the legionnaire asked his friend, staring hard into his frightened eyes.
"Of course not! But knowing the things I know, I never do," admitted Stygian with a weak smile.
Once again, the Guardians, Commander Hurricane, and the royal sisters gathered at the meeting table in the main pavilion.
"Welcome back everypony," greeted Celestia, far too cheerfully for the wee hours before dawn. "I hope you were able to get some rest and calm yourselves." That last bit was clearly aimed at Princess Luna, as it was accompanied by a pointed glance in her younger siblings direction.
If the younger of the royal sisters picked up on it at all, then she pretended not to notice it well. Indeed, at the moment even responding to Celestia's exuberance seemed to be beneath her. But Luna did at least appear to be a little less agitated than she had been before. She now sat in stony silence, as still and statuesque as a a work of art sculpted from obsidian.
Sadly, the Guardians of Harmony did not appear even remotely as poised as the royal sisters.
Despite Stygian's insistence to the contrary, Flash Magnus had decided to wake the other legendary ponies so they might defend the camp from the Candy Mare's psychological attack. They had spent several fruitless hours stumbling around in the dark, chasing after screams and whispers that faded away to nothing. Each time they had thought that they had at last run the candy cannibal down, all they would find would be a jack-o-lantern grinning mockingly in the snow. As Stygian had predicted, it had been a lost cause. The Candy Mare was merely toying with them, trying to get inside their heads to stoke their anxieties and paranoia. As a result, now it was the Pillars who slumped at the table, exhausted and in moods most foul. Comparatively the royal sisters looked as if they had just stepped out of a long relaxing stay at the spa.
"I'm sorry your grace, but I'm afraid that we found rest to be as elusive as our prey," began Starswirl, rubbing his brow with one hoof, "We can hear the Candy Mare, and at times see her, stalking the edges of our encampment. Unfortunately she melts away at our approach like morning fog. Would the same could be said for the voices of the dead that she has employed to taunt us with lies and half truths."
"The things they says are not entirely lies," whispered Mistmane, sounding for the first time as frail and old as she looked, eyes haunted. "It's as if the dead speak through her, fragments of their real memories playing back events that really happened, but twisted in ways that are as disturbing as they are at times compelling. Of course, they are not the words that our friends would say - Not face to face. Not if they still lived. But even I find myself listening more intently than I should to their babble. More than once, I thought I could even see them, moving through the trees. So lost, so cold, so lonely... And so very hungry..."
"Hush now," Mage Meadowbrook held Mistmane in a tight hug and stroked her hair, smoothing down a few errant strands that stress and fatigue had put out of place. As she did this, the earth pony hummed a soothing folk tune and rocked the elderly looking mare gently. The unicorn closed her eyes and gave a shuddering sigh. The healer then turned her attention back to Celestia as she said, "You can see that it has taken a toll on us, but we're not the only ones that have been effected. The soldiers are restless. Many are losing their nerve. It's clear that they want to flee, but with that beast out there just waiting to pick off anyone that strays from camp, no one dares to be the first to try. We're like sheep huddled together against the cries of the wolf. The howling is all around us and getting closer by the moment. It won't be long before those weakest mentally break."
Even here near the middle of the encampment, the laughter and shrieks of the dead carried, though their actual words were blessedly muffled. Celestia and Luna glanced at one another, as if noticing the cacophonous noise for the first time.
"I understand. Then I shall deal with this posthaste!" declared Celestia, rising from her seat, as if she were ready to charge off to battle, "No one, be they mare or beast, shall torment my little ponies so long as I am here!"
"With respect, dear sister, I don't think it's wise for you to fall into the Candy Mare's trap," interjected Luna, clearly choosing her words carefully. "While I too wish to do something to assuage the fears of the soldiery, running yourself ragged chasing after phantoms is not the way to do it. The Guardian's have demonstrated that truth rather eloquently. But perhaps there is another way?"
Princess Celestia seemed taken aback, surprised at her sisters words. "Oh! I suppose you're right. But then what do you suggest?"
Luna's graceful expression turned a little sour as she said, "That you do that thing that everypony seems to be convinced that only you can do. Dawn isn't that far off anyways..."
If she noticed her sisters ugly look, then the princess of the daylight hours also did a magnificent job of not showing it. Instead she only smiled. "Ah, of course! It's a little early, but I think an exception can be made this once..." Saying that, the princess's horn began to glow as Celestia spread her angelic white wings wide. A brilliant glow suddenly spread over the hills of snow and, though it was not yet due, the sun burst over the horizon at the monarch's command.
As if someone had flipped a switch, the distant sounds that had haunted the night ceased, fading away to nothing. The peaceful calm of morning replaced the long nightmare of the night, dispelling the aura of unease and apprehension that had haunted the camp but mere moments ago as easily as a lantern might banish a shadow. Against all odds, there was even the welcome refrain of bird-song as snowy little bundles of feathers awoke in the trees. It was as if all the horror of the prior evening had been naught but a fever dream that had finally broken, it's last vestiges melting away in the golden rays of dawn.
"A most welcome reprieve, I am sure," Somnambula acknowledged with a tired smile. "But does not the Candy Mare hide herself away during daylight hours? Surely she will now go to ground, hiding herself away someplace we know not where. Would not it have been better to keep her close by? How will we find her now?"
Rockhoof cleared his throat, "In the saga's of my clan, such unnatural creatures were often unable to show themselves under the light of the day star. It's glare would cause them great agony and rob them of their power. They would seek an abode to dwell in, until the return of the eve when hunger would bring them forth again to bedevil the lives of those who yet breathed the air of the living." As tall as the stallion stood, it seemed that his height was not enough in that moment, as he clambered on top of the meeting table and began to scan the horizon while shading his eyes from the light of the rising sun. "Shroud eaters and shape changers of the Candy Mare's ilk tend to crawl into the burrows and burial mounds of ancient kings. In a pinch they might bury themselves deep in the soil of battlefields once drenched in the blood in ancient times, but I know of no such nearby battle sites. Rather I suspect there is a crypt or cemetery nearby in which she will take shelter. The smell of old death is comforting to the living dead and they are drawn to such resting places, though the repose of the truly dead be denied them. But they'll take the next best thing if they can get it."
Flash Magnus ear twitched. Though he didn't understand everything his brawny friend had been talking about, there was something he had said that caught his attention. "Hey, isn't the former castle of King Bullion nearby? If I'm not mistaken we're very near the heart of what used to be unicorn territory. It may not be an old battlefield or some ancient kings final rest, but if the castle still stands then the undercroft is probably still accessible as well. Those catacombs were one huge charnel house, if memory serves. It sounds like that would be prime real estate for the kind of creature Rockhoof describes, if the Candy Mare does indeed share such traits in common."
It was Commander Hurricane's turn to perk up. He he quickly rummaged inside his saddle bag and produced a weather worn map which he spread across the table. After a few moments of intense scrutiny, a grim smile twisted the un-scarred side of his face.
"You're right. Castle Bullion is less than a days trek from here," he said as he thrust his wooden hoof at a spot on the crinkled map, "Even shorter as the pegasus flies! If we leave now we might even over take her and cut off her retreat!"
"I wouldn't count on that commander," cautioned Stygian. "In the folklore that I have studied, the dead are known to travel quite fast. It would be best to fully prepare to face the fiend in it's lair, should the castles catacombs prove to be such. Going off half-cocked would likely only get you and anypony else who went with you killed..."
"I believe that somepony here said that they were ready for me to produce some results," Hurricane reminded the assembled ponies. "All I'm suggesting is that we act with haste. I may not be the warrior I once was, but I've got at least one fight left in me, and I plan to bring it to whatever we might find lurking in that castle!"
"Though it is perhaps not your place to say so, Stygian, I do agree with you," spoke Starswirl, eyeing Commander Hurricane. "It would be easy enough to catch up to the Candy Mare, but what then? Even if we were to corner her, a trapped rat is twice as dangerous. We need to formulate a plan of action before setting out to storm the castle, so to speak."
"Do you not already have such a plan prepared?" asked Princess Celestia, surprised at her mentor and former teacher showing such hesitation.
"Alas, your grace, not as such," the bearded unicorn admitted, furrowing his brow. "I have been working on a spell that I think could end this nightmare once and for all, but it requires harnessing an enormous amount of magic for it to succeed. Even were we to muster all the might of every unicorn in the Royal Guard, it still might not be enough. Truthfully, even if your royal sisters were to lend your aid, the price of invoking such powerful magic may still be too steep to pay as it could put all of our lives at risk. Until such time as preparations can be made to safe guard Equestria's future, I'm afraid the only plan I have is one of last resort."
"Perhaps we could try my plan then?" asked Stygian timidly, though he quickly grew more confident as he continued. "If you recall Flash's account of his fight against the Candy Mare, she was vulnerable to his artifact. Though a shield is designed primarily for defense, Flash said it actually managed to hurt her. Imagine if we had an entire army equipped with copies of the artifacts that you all wield! Surrounded by warriors equipped with weapons of that nature, even the Candy Mare would not stand a chance!"
"Oh Stygian, we've been over this before," Meadowbrook shook her head sadly. "You know it's impossible."
"Our artifacts contain the concentrated elemental forces of magic that binds our world together," spoke Starswirl as if he were repeating a refrain he had reiterated many times before."To try to duplicate them, to dilute their power, would not only potentially render them useless but it could also harm the delicate balance of the unfathomable forces that govern our world! Is your heart so clouded by your desire to have an artifact of you own that you would allow your envy to bring about an even greater disaster than the one we already face?"
"It is not envy that drives me, but my desire to help!" croaked Stygian, his words raw with emotion. "If you would only listen to me then we could -"
"That's enough!" Thundered the unicorn sorcerer, the leader of the Guardians putting his hoof down. "If you truly wish to help, then help us by putting aside such folly and instead come up with a plan of action that involves less risk!"
Without warning, an object ripped through the top of the pavilion tent and crashed down into the table with enough force to crack it in two!
Ponies were sent flailing as their chairs tipped backwards and flames spread inside the tent from the tipped over brazier. It took a moment for everypony to right themselves but Flash Magnus was the first to act, quickly darting about the tent to extinguish the errant flames which he smothered with his shield. Rockhoof chipped in as well, using his shovel to scoop up the burning debris and toss it out into the snow, then smother any lingering fires beneath spades full of earth. While the stallions dealt with that problem a gasp, followed swiftly by a shriek of horror, let everypony know that there was yet another crisis brewing.
The scream had come from Somnambula whose wide eyes and trembling hoof were pointed to what lay sprawled in the shattered remains of the meeting table. The other Guardians gasped as well when their eyes fell upon the blood smeared, limbless torso of a mare that lay in the wreckage. She had been mutilated nearly beyond recognition, the stumps where her legs had once been had clearly been gnawed down to the bone while the rest of her body seemed to have been abused in like manner, stripped of all dignity. The victims head was the only thing still attached to her body, though loosely as her neck hung from her shoulders by a thread of flesh, her features partially hidden by the helm of a royal guard.
From what they could see, the solider's jaw had been bitten off, leaving her tongue to hang limp and lifeless from her throat. Twin tracks of bloody tears stained the corpse's twisted face, her eyes gouged from their sockets and the viscera left to drain from the wet, sucking wounds that had been left in their place. The teeth marks around the circumference of those raw red holes, as well as her lack of eyelids, seemed to indicate that her eyeballs had eaten directly from her skull, likely sucked from their sockets while the sentry had still yet lived. What further ruin the dead pony's helmet hid, the gathered ponies could only speculate, but it was likely no less a horrifying sight than what they could already see peeking from behind the metal.
Long gashes also covered the pony's body. At first it just looked like random abuse inflicted on an already mauled body, but on closer inspection the slashes spelled out crude words that still dripped with fresh blood. The message, written in pain across a broken chest and down to a slit-open belly read, "Are yOu A PrINcEss? LeTs Fly tO tHe CasTLe! CoMe AloNe" The last had been underlined so deeply across her stomach that it had disemboweled her, opening her wide so that her intestines dangled in long ropy strands between the stumps where the mare's legs had once been.
Stygian turned to vomit at this grizzly display, and no one there could blame him.
"Well, I guess this confirms it at least," said Flash Magnus with a grimace, the first to recover from the shock. Perhaps he was becoming inured to such horrors? "It would seem that Castle Bullion is indeed our next destination."
"Surely not!" cried Meadowbrook, doing what she could to sooth the openly weeping Somnambula. "It's obviously a trap."
"A trap it might be, but if we want to stop things like this," Commander Hurricane gestured to the unfortunate former guard pony, "Then we'll need to go there. We'll need to put an end to this madness once and for all!"
"No, 'we' don't need to do anything of the sort," spoke Princess Celestia, her tone serious and brooking no disagreement. "It's me she wants. She's calling me out. Too many of my subjects have lost their lives hunting her. It's time that I take matters into my own hooves and face this fiend one on one! As ruler of Equestria it is I, and I alone, who must brave this horror. "
"What!?" cried Luna, taken aback. "And what about me? Am I not a ruler of Equestria too? Surely I should go with you! Or do you think I am too cowardly to join you? Worried I'll 'let my fears get the better of me' again?”
“Be still, little moon! The message says to come alone,” replied Celestia, turning to stare down her sister. “Besides, it’s imperative that one of us stays behind. That way, should the worst befall one of us, our subjects will still have the other to care for them.”
“Then I don’t see why I should have to stay behind instead of you,” answered Luna flabbergasted. “If I'm just the spare then let me do this in your stead! Look what that abomination did to this poor mare! What if she were to do something like that to you and fling your corpse in our midst for all to see!"
"There would be bedlam," nodded Starswirl in agreement. "Perhaps instead we Guardians of Harmony should go in your stead? Our passing from this world, should we fail, would at least have less of an impact on the populace. If she expects one pony and instead comes up against our combined might we may take her by surprise."
"Is that really the wisest choice?" asked Mistmane, her eyes locked on the poor unfortunate sentry who had been slain to serve as a message to them all. "Can we truly face such cold brutality with nothing but the hope of 'surprise' on our side?"
Mistmane brushed a stray lock of hair out of the corpse's face, the mare's body shifted, slumping to one side with a bone crackling snap. Her helmet slid off of her then to reveal that half of her head was missing, cracked like an eggshell, so that her skull let the light of the sun shine through her empty eye sockets and the ragged hole in her throat. The triangular wounds in her face eerily resembled the vacant glowing expression of a jack-o-lantern, lit up by that suddenly less comforting light.
As if that had been some kind of trigger, the edges of the pony's wounds began to sizzle, wisps of smoke rising from all over her body. Without further warning the cadaver jerked upright, letting loose an unearthly scream that was one part primordial fear and one part unbearable agony! It started to thrash it's stumps about in horrifying convulsions that sprayed black blood in every direction, as if it were trying to scramble out of the daylight.
"Get back Mistmane!" cried Commander Hurricane in warning as he swiftly interposed himself between the unicorn and the suddenly reanimated corpse. But as he did, a huge insectile limb burst from one of the ghoul's stumps and passed smoothly through his armor and the full length of his body! The crystalline blade was composed of purple rock candy, and the scent of sugaered plums flooded the area as it shook off the commanders blood. It must have been razor sharp, for Commander Hurricane didn't even seem to flinch as it had cut through him.
Hurricane stood transfixed, a gurgling choking sound coming from his throat as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then, agonizingly slowly, the officer fell apart in two perfectly bisected pieces as blood exploded into the air. The halves of his body spread apart displayed his perfectly split anatomy, his heart was still beating nestled in the left half of his body, furiously pumping blood onto the ground. It seemed there would be no more fighting for the old soldier after all. The Candy Mare had finally taken everything from him.
Chaos erupted as each pony sprung into action!
The candy ghoul sprouted more long purple limbs before scuttling crablike backwards into the scant amount of shade that the pavilion still offered. As it's empty head lolled backwards, long sharp teeth sprouted from inside it's hollowed out brain-case. With a slobbering, fleshy roar, it lunged from it's cover and aimed an attack straight at Princess Celestia!
Before it's wicked, new-grown fangs could close around her royal face, a shovel collided with the ghoul's fragile skull to deliver a shattering blow! Shards of teeth and bone rained down on the ground as the candied monstrosity squealed in fresh anguish. Rockhoof was not finished, however, as he put his strength behind his magic shovel to jab fiercely at the crustacean-like beasts midsection. This elicited an evil hiss from the reverent as it pulled away from the earth pony, spitting up sizzling black slime and more broken teeth as the blow connected with her disemboweled belly.
"Guardians, protect your Princesses!" bellowed Starswirl as he raised his own artifact, the tome of sorcery, and unleashed an eldritch blast at the unclean abomination.
The monster reeled, half it's already ragged body scorched by the explosive magic, but it dodged a second blast and twirling out of harms way at the last second. It moved more gracefully by the moment, almost dancing as it dodged the Pillar's attacks, candy continuing to flow over it's body and hardening into an exoskeleton that seemed to strengthen it's muscles and re-enforce it's movements. Horrifically twined smiles stretched on either side of it's face as, wailing like a banshee, it launched itself once more but this time aiming for Princess Luna!
Before it could land with all four snapping scythes, the candy ghoul came up short as it's razor sharp limbs smashed against the metal of Flash Magnus's shield. It scrabbled and scraped against the slick surface of Netitus, but seemed repelled by the metals enchantment. Instead it was pushed back and landed in a tangled heap of mewling cries and smoldering torment as it was force backwards into the sun that beat down from above. The face of the former mare's dangling head seemed to be twisted into a look of despair as it's candy coating ignited under the day stars glare, the plum scented shell melting like hot wax.
"Together! As one!" shouted Starswirl, and as he did each of the Guardian's of Harmony raised their artifacts into the air. The totems floated free from their grasp and began to glow in every color of the rainbow. A light of the same kaleidoscopic color burst forth from the enchanted items and fell upon the ghoul like a heavy rain, pinning her in place so she could not escape to the solace of the shade again. Held beneath the unrelenting sun the ghoul's legs curcled up like those of a dead spider, and her flesh swiftly putrefied and blackened, before at last she crumbled to dust. When all was said and done only a shadowy smear on the ground marked where the briefly risen dead had been.
"Well done everypony,"cheered Stygian, breaking the silence that followed. Although he too fell silent when he saw the cost of their victory, "Poor Commander Hurricane..."
"He died a heroes death," declared Rockhoof as Mistmane and Starswirl used their magic to cover the pegasi's bifurcated remains respectfully with a bit of torn tarpaulin.
"There is no greater love than that shown by one willing to lay down their own life for a friend," whispered Celestia. tears stinging the edges of her eyes. "Too many of our friends have lost everything fighting this depravity. We will move out, in full force, trap or no trap! We will bring everything we have to bear against this madness! We will bring an end to the Candy Mare!"
"What will we do? If an army marches on her resting place the Candy Mare will just flee further into the north or burrow under the earth where we cannot reach her. Even should the search continue after that, she'll just keep picking us off from the shadows, unwilling to risk a direct confrontation. The Candy Mare may be a beast, but she is no fool."
"It is Celestia that is the fool. She squanders an opportunity that has literally landed right in her lap! For once our enemy has told us exactly where she is going to be. This is a situation that calls for cunning, not brute force!"
"Could you not reason with her? Make her see the folly of this choice?"
" You don't know her like I do. She thinks she knows everything. She would call my caution fear and her own foolhardiness bravery. Now that she has gotten worked up like this, she won't allow anypony to question her decisions. If we leave it to her we will be hunting this monster for a thousand years to come, always one step behind it."
"Then we're agreed. Something must be done to change the course of these events. We will have to act independently from the others if we are to win the day."
"Yes, I'll take care of things on my end. I will buy us the time that we need for both of us to act. Just make sure you're outside of camp before I cast my spell. You can retrieve your baubles once I'm done. No hesitation now, or you can forget about me helping you anymore in the future."
"Not to worry. We both have goals we wish to achieve beyond simply destroying the Candy Mare."
"Indeed. A chance for you to finally stand with your friends as their equal. And for me, an opportunity for me to receive the recognition that is my due, to rise in the esteem of our comrades. No more having to forever question our value. An opportunity to prove our worth to those who may doubt it and set to rest all the fears of the past."
"Whatever happens, you have certainly risen in my esteem princess. Yours is not the lesser light and, I believe, you are truly fearless!"
"Indeed, and don't you forget it."
Flash Magnus awoke in semi-darkness, the last rays of the setting sun shining directly into his eyes.
The legionnaire had fallen asleep in his tent, right in the middle of preparing for the assault on Castle Bullion. How could he have been so careless? He knew he was exhausted, but it wasn't like him to simply fall asleep out of nowhere like this. Seeing how much of the day had waned, he must have been out like a light for some time. Why had no one come to wake him? As the pegasus peeked his head out of the flaps of his tent, he could see other ponies groggily awakening from where they too had apparently fallen.
"Flash, thank goodness!" cried Somnambula as she went flying past. "Come to the royal pavilion, quickly! It's terrible!"
Spreading his wings Flash took to the skies and flew after her. All across the encampment voices were being raised in alarm. It seemed that the entire army had been taken unawares by unconsciousness. Even now, there were still some ponies who slept who would not wake, no matter how hard their fellows tried to stir them.
What was going on?
Flying close behind Somnambula, Flash could see his other friends heading towards Celestia's tent, all save for Starswirl as the unicorn himself was waiting at the entrance to the Princess's makeshift quarters.
Not even giving his friends a chance to catch their breath, the sage addressed them all. "Celestia will not wake. It would seem that each of us have fallen to some malicious sleeping spell, but she has been afflicted the worst of us all. As you can see, we have lost the advantage of the day, and if we cannot rouse the princess soon, she will be defenseless should the Candy Mare attack us again."
"Neigh good Starswirl, even should she remain bewitched she will not be defenseless," declared Rockhoof, squaring his shoulders. "We Guardians shall defend her to our dying breath!"
"And die we very well may, my friend," intoned Starswirl grimly. "Or have you not noticed? Our artifacts are missing. I can no longer sense their magic nearby. They must have been stolen while we slumbered."
"Who would do such a thing?" asked Meadowbrook, her face ashen. "Some minion of the Candy Mare?"
"I fear not," whispered Mistmane gravely. "Our friend Stygian is missing too. The tracks from his tent lead south. Though my senses are not as highly attuned to magic as your own Starswirl, I can sense that my artifact also lies in that direction."
"Treachery!" gasped Starswirl in disbelief, his eyes filled with hurt and confusion for a moment before flooding with fury. "How could he? After all we have done for him?"
"Nevermind that for now chief," cut in Flash, kicking himself for not noticing his own shield was missing sooner. "What's our play? Do we take the fight to the Candy Mare as planned? Stay here and protect Celestia? Or go after the artifacts?"
"Without our artifacts I am afraid that the royal guards are likely more potent defenders than we are," admitted Somnambula, looking less hopeful than she usually did without her blindfold.
"And without our artifacts we stand no chance against the Candy Mare," agreed Starswirl, the bells sewn into his outfit jangling as he stumped the earth furiously. "We must track down Stygian and stop whatever folly it is that he has planned. We'll deal with the rest once our artifacts are recovered and we have dealt with the traitor in our midst. We will leave the soldiers behind to guard the princess's as they slumber. They would only slow our search for Stygian."
"Where is the little moon anyway's Starswirl? I see Celestia sleeping within but not her younger sibling," Rockhoof asked as he cast his gaze about the encampment. As he did, the sun slowly slipped beneath the horizon and as the gathered Pillars watched an enormous full moon began to rise in it's place.
"Luna!" Panic filled Starswirl's voice as the realization of what the moon gliding into the sky could mean. "Has anypony seen Princess Luna!?"
"Not since before we all blacked out," admitted Mage Meadowbrook with a shrug.
Flash and Somnambula nodded to one another and the two pegasi took wing. As they rose into the twilight, there was just enough light left from the sinking sun for both to cast their eyes around the encampment to see if they could spot any sign of the missing Princess.
"She is not in her tent," informed Somnambula, her eyesight keen enough to tell that from a distance.
"No sign of her at all. Although the weather seems disturbed to the north," observed Flash, "There's a fresh storm gathering in the direction of Castle Bullion."
"Damnation!" swore Starswirl, his beard and mane briefly bursting into magical flames before, with a visible effort, he got his emotions under control and they went back to normal. "She's still awake, and has chosen to face the Candy Mare alone - at night - when she will be at her most powerful. I know she wants to prove herself but now is not the time for such a gamble!"
"We must go after her," insisted Mistmane, her eyes clouded with worry. "She may be an alicorn princess, but in many ways she is still but a child."
"I'm not so sure," mused Rockhoof, the warrior waxing uncharacteristically thoughtful. "Immature she may be, but she has the spirit of a Valkyrie. If she chose to brave Fimbulwinter and face the Mare of Candy on her own, then perhaps we should put our faith in her strength. Then we can focus on Stygian and discovering whatever the source of this enchanted sleep might be."
"Ah! Of course!" gasped Starswirl suddenly, as if something had just dawned on him. "That makes sense. I had no idea she had grown so strong."
"What is it?" asked Meadowbrook, perplexed.
"I don't think we need to worry about discovering the source of the sleeping spell," answered Starswirl brusquely. "I have faith it will wear off in due course, as it did with us. But I agree with Rockhoof, we must simply trust that Princess Luna has made the right choice for the time being. We will do what we can to aid her after we retrieve our artifacts. I will inform the soldiers of these developments, and have them make a security detail around Celestia while she rests. And then..."
"Then we find Stygian." finished Flash for him.
"Yes," agreed the unicorn mage, lightning crackling in his eyes. "Then we find our betrayer."
High above, the winter winds had calmed and the last vestiges of the blizzard seemed to fade into the oncoming velvet of night. The storm had moved away just enough so that the first stars of evening could be seen peaking through the tattered ghosts of the clouds that remained in it's wake. However, not far off the sky still boiled, brewing another tempest that threatened to overshadow the one that had come before. Flashes of green and orange lightning promised thunder snow before the night was over. The frigid light of the cold moon outlined those teeming thunderheads in it's silver glow as it climbed into the sky. It was like a pearl pillowed on the black velvet of the boiling squall, it's lustrous light shaming the diamond dust of the stars and illuminating the land for miles around.
Castle Bullion stood in perfect silhouette against the backdrop of the pale moonlight, a dark stain across the satellite's glowing surface. In the highest tower in the tallest keep, what remained of a once thriving colony of bats huddled together in hibernation. Their torpor had gone on much longer than it was meant to, and the floor was littered with the bodies of bats who had dreamed of a spring that would never come. Even so, the strongest of the brood yet endured, clinging stubbornly to life. Despite the tower being far from the warm and humid roost it would have been had the castle still been kept cozy by its original occupants, one of the tiny brown bodies stirred as it was touched by the opalescent light streaming through a broken stained-glass window. It shivered, it's body temperature briefly rising as it stretched muscles stiff from clinging so long to the rafters and lethargically opened one eye to stare out at the rising moon. From the bat's vantage, it could see through the broken glass down into the abandoned township below. Despite it's weak eyesight and poor health, it could just barely make out something moving through the winter stillness.
Something drawing closer...
All around the keep, abandoned hovels that had once housed vibrant families of unicorns tottered in frozen decay. Many of the thatch roofs had long ago caved in under the weight of ice and snow. Other houses stood off-kilter, slanted sideways against the constant blast of the northern wind, unmoored from foundations long since broken. Door's hung open, held in place by the buildup of ice that froze them fast to the snow drifts they were stuck in, giving a glimpse into the crooked homes that had now long stood uninhabited. Here one could see a glimpse inside the lives of opulence the former tenants had once led, caught in frozen tableau. Plates of sweet meats and pastries dusted with ice crystals on dining room tables accompanied by cups of tea that were left frozen solid. One might see chase lounges and finely embroidered carpets, but these too were caked with permafrost. The saddest remains were perhaps the glacially preserved aquariums, the glass long since shattered by the expansion of the formerly liquid environment that they once contained. Many families had clearly left in a hurry and some would have had no choice but to leave beloved pets behind.
Princess Luna hovered over the town on midnight wings, unwilling to land in the midst of the rime encrusted ruins. There was something almost sacrosanct about the place, that would be transgressed by so much as the trod of a hoof were she to take a step upon that land. Instead Luna, herself a dark shape against the stars, flew on to the entrance of the citadel that loomed over all those broken dreams. She was but a tiny dot before the castle, but even so, she stood out remarkably as the only moving thing in this wasteland frozen in time.
The portcullis was already raised as if in anticipation of her arrival. While this welcome most likely had been laid out with her sister Celestia in mind, the Princess of the Night was not going to be so rude as to decline the open invitation now that she had come this far. The portcullis put her in mind of the fangs of some enormous beast, a dark gaping maw gaping invitingly wide for foolish prey to wander into. Sure enough, as soon as Luna passed beneath them they snapped closed with a thunderous crunch! High above the ultra sonic squeaks of the disturbed bat colony could just be heard as the few survivors took wing, searching for a quieter and safer roost somewhere far away and warm. Perhaps it had been inadvertent, but perhaps by coming here Luna had managed to save a few little lives, tiny though they were. Only now did she land, her hooves clip clopping on the frozen cobble stones as she stepped beyond the entrance to the stronghold.
Now she was truly in the belly of the beast. The Princess of the Night scoffed at her own sense of disquiet. There was nothing fanciful or supernatural about a gate closing, and this tottering old castle was far from being some ravenous creature. No, the one that likely waited inside better fit that description. It was too soon for Luna to let her nerves get the better of her, she needed to steel herself for the battle yet to come, so instead of dwelling on her unease she pressed on.
The castle courtyard was much like the ghost town that lay outside it's walls, dripping though it was with ice where it was not blanketed by snow. Enormous icicles hung from the battlements, some forming thick translucent columns several stories tall. Here and there was the evidence of the unicorn nobility's hurried flight from their once impenetrable fortress. Here was a wagon that had been laden for travel, abandoned with its wheels frozen permanently in its ruts. Over there was a wheelbarrow piled high with abandoned art, the tarp over which had long since been ripped away by the relentless winter winds. The canvases beneath now contained not the lineage these images had sought to preserve but only the vaguest hints of the shapes of ponies long dead. The figures were distorted and strange, yet their eyes still seemed to follow Luna as she crossed the courtyard. The irony that this edifice which had long protected the unicorn's from enemies from without had at last instead succumbed to a threat spawned from within by their own hatred and bigotry was not lost upon Luna.
All was deathly quiet.
The princess could hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.
There was a flash of distant lightning and a crash that nearly made Luna jump out of her skin!
A banshee howl of rising wind promised the lull in the storm was to shortly end.
Luna needed to be inside before that happened.
The main door of the fortress proper creaked open slowly on rusty hinges. It banged against the side of the stone wall, blown open by a feral gust of wind. A shiver ran down Luna's spine as she gazed into the perfect darkness that lay within. There would likely be little moonlight to comfort her there. Perhaps this had not been her best idea after all? While she had no doubt about her capabilities in open combat, it was unwise to face an enemy on their own terms, and the murky depths she was staring into certainly looked like the perfect battlefield for the Candy Mare to take advantage of. Walking into such an obvious trap, no matter how brave or bold, could be a recipe only for disaster. If Luna turned back now, there would be no shame in it. Some might even count it as wise.
But then Luna couldn't help but imagine the look her sister would give her upon her return.
Oh, how Celestia would laugh and tease her! Not having the guts to push forward after she had come this far would bring nothing but delight to her older sibling. Luna could hear the mock sympathy in her condescending words already. These thoughts lit a fire in the young princess's belly that dispelled her doubts and fears, and drove away the chill that was settling over her like a shroud. She would press on, if only out of pure spite.
Boldly the Princess of the Night crossed the threshold! Once again, the door slammed fast behind her, blotting out the reassuring light of the moon and stars. Swallowed by the darkness, Luna suddenly felt very tiny and alone, but it was too late to turn back now.
Inside, the castle was somehow even colder and more miserable than it had been outside. In the chill air there was a stillness that went beyond the quiet Luna had experienced outside. Now her every breath hung as a cloud of steam in the air and her breathing sounded magnified in her own ears. She took a moment to calm herself, and then slowly illuminated her horn. The light didn't seem to reach very far within this expansive edifice, but the pool of illumination around her lit up her immediate surroundings well enough for her to continue forward. Frost covered the walls and rime encrusted the floor and ceiling as far as she could see. Long icicles hung from the ceiling, as they had from the walls outside, making the castle feel more wild and cavernous than it would have when it had still been occupied by its living residents.
Encased particularly thickly in these icicles was a vast chandelier glittered darkly above, the oil that once allowed it to blaze bright had long since frozen solid in the now light-less sconces. Likewise there were candelabra, furniture, and full suits of decorative armor glazed with ice, icicles cascading down their exteriors like motionless waterfalls. The tapestries that hung on the walls were tattered and worn as the victories and myths that they once held had been obliterated by feathery fingers of hoarfrost that had marched relentlessly across their surfaces, mercilessly as any conquering foe.
"I'm here," Luna called in a whisper that sounded like thunder in her own ears, but was swiftly swallowed by the pregnant silence. Of course, there was no answer. Feeling silly, she put on her Royal Canterlot Voice and instead shouted, "THY PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT HATH ARRIVED! SHOW THYSELF BLACKGUARD, LEST THEE BE CRAVEN!"
Only the fading echos of Luna's own words came back in reply.
'Arrived-ived-ived!'
'Blackguard-ard-rd!'
'Craven-ven-en-n!'
Some of the frost on the ceiling must have shook loose by her cry, for a light snow began to fall. The sight of it snowing indoors would have normally been a magical thing, but here in the tomb-like silence and near total darkness it was strange and disturbing in a way that Luna could not quite account for. Clicking her tongue in disapproval at the lack of her enemy manifesting herself on command, Luna had no choice but to venture deeper into the castle. The gently falling snowflakes following her and a low dense fog rose to choke every pathway as she marched forward.
The Princess passed a flight of ruined stairs that spiraled up into the stronghold's main tower, so thick with verglas it appear to be made of glass, mist spilling down it's steps like a river of ghosts. Further on she passed several chambers that seemed to be set aside for receiving foreign dignitaries, the flags of the various pony tribes hanging stiff and frozen over tables and chairs that had apparently been overturned in some haste. The windows here had all been broken, and the wind whistled mournfully through the shattered panes. Past these she came to what must have once been a grand and gaudy ball room, decorated with rare gems and crystals that now blended with the columns of ice that encased them. The glow from Luna's horn reflected strangely in their frosty facets, sending weird and watery shafts of colored light dancing across the walls. The torn remains of banners and garlands of some interrupted festivities gave the scene a touch of the bizarre, a joyous occasion left to be celebrated only by the relentless elements that had overtaken these halls.
At last, she came to the long and high-ceilinged throne room. Here the ravages of the north were less apparent than in any other room, though the chill mist and falling snowflakes were if anything denser and more pervasive here. That was not all that was odd about this chamber, however, for on closer inspection there was the scent of something more than the tinny smell of snow or the must of disused chambers. As Luna flared her nostrils, she inhaled the rich iron stench of blood, foul and thick on the air. Beneath that, there was something far more putrid, as well as something that was almost tantalizingly... Sweet?
Focusing more magic into her horn, Luna increased the range of her illumination enough that she could peer high into the rafters above. An involuntary gasp escaped her throat, although she wasn't really surprised by what she saw. She had found the Candy Mare's larder, where she kept the meat from her kills. There were so many ponies, all different ages and races, in various stages of decay. Some had been stripped entirely of their flesh and hung barely more than skeletons with mere gobbets of meat still clinging to their yellowing bones. Others looked comparatively fresher, though most were mutilated in terrible, heart-wrenching ways. Many were hung by their own entrails, strung in mock imitation of the festive garlands and banners in the ball room Luna had passed through on the way here. These halls had been decked in the viscera of the Candy Mare's victims, a horrid display of her callous madness writ large.
Luna realized with disgust that the blood she had smelled was in fact steadily falling all around her in the form of feathery red snowflakes. The blood from the dead had formed into thick red icicles that dangled from their remains and the droplets from these stained the flakes that fell from the ceiling. Drifts of reddish-black snow were piled thickly beneath where the corpse-cicles clustered tightly together. The deranged idea of building a frosty scarlet snow-mare from the gory sludge flickered across Luna's mind, making her stomach lurch, although it hinted that the contents of this room were sending her mind dangerously close to the edge of the depths of insanity that the Candy Mare already blithely swam. The shores of sanity were not far behind, but Luna had wander into the shoals of derangement just by gazing on this profaned place.
Pushing her disturbed thoughts from her head with a physical shake, Luna approached the vacant thrones at the far end of the room, neck still craned back as she stared wordlessly at the slaughtered masses suspended over her head. If it were not for the cold, the stench of so many carcasses would have been truly overpowering. As it was, the freezing temperatures preserved the meat, letting the Candy Mare amass a great stock of 'food' for the never ending winter. That the creature had gathered such a bounty and yet still went about relentlessly murdering ponies without slowing down spoke at once to her immense hunger as well as her insatiable bloodlust. She was a greedy glutton in every sense of the word as even this vast collection of corpses was likely but a small portion of her over all body count. Likely there were stockpiles like this all over the frozen north. The scope of the candied abomination's slaughter was truly mind-numbing.
Luna at last let her attention drift to the ornate thrones that occupied the raised dais at the far end of the room. One of these thrones had once belonged to King Bullion himself while the other, smaller one, had been reserved for his daughter Princess Platinum. Luna could not help but think of what the pair of prim and proper unicorns might make of what their beloved throne room had been converted into. The once ornate royal seats had fared no better, each having been completely ruined and defiled by the steady deluge of viscera from above. The once proud seats of power were caked in wet crimson and black muck that stank almost worse than the bloated cadavers above. Luna had to turn her head and cover her mouth to keep from gagging, realizing only belatedly what her hooves had been trudging through and quickly placing her hoof back on the floor.
So then, where was her erstwhile 'host'?
Was the Candy Mare not here after all? It seemed like the perfect place for her to receive her 'guest'.
Was this a dead end?
Beyond the befouled royal seats, a low groan caught Luna's attention. A wall and a portion of the floor sunk, grinding away to reveal a hidden passage that beckoned the princess to continue on. The corridor was narrow and seemed to lead down into the bowels of the keep. Luna would have been more than happy to leave this abattoir behind, but that didn't stop her from pausing just before taking that first step into the world that hid below all this ruined decadence.
For all that she had seen thus far had been quite disturbing, but who knew what might await in the subterranean depths below, where her wings would be useless and her magic as much a danger to her enemy as to herself? Were Luna to accidentally bring the ruins down on her own head, burying her where no one would ever find her, that would be a truly embarrassing and ignominious end to this harrowing expedition.
A subtle breeze whistled through the suspended bodies that hung over-head, making the bloody icicles chime in a grotesquely musical fashion. It gave the impression that the dead were whispering among themselves, shaking off their rigor-mortis and preparing to descend on the unwitting princess that hesitated below.
Once again, Luna shook, banishing such thoughts from her head. What did it matter if she was to explore a little further? She had to know. It wasn't like she was running away, or anything. They were just dead bodies - ponies she hadn't been able to save. Surely they wouldn't hold a grudge against her for that?
Unconsciously holding her breath, Luna descended the stairs into yet deeper darkness. As the Alicorn vanished into the gloom, the soft whispers turned instead to dry laughter.
A reflection of the ruined stairs that led up into the castle's tower which Luna had passed earlier awaited her beyond the dark portal. The stairs here spiraled not upwards into the heavens, but instead down into the depths below the earth. The dense mist spilled down the stairs, and almost seemed to sweep Luna along with it's chilly flow. As the princess descend down the spiral, a ghostly green flicker of witch-light rose to greet her, suffusing the fog with an eerie phosphorescence. The alicorn tensed, uncertain what the source of the illumination could be, but she readied herself in case it was the prelude to some sort of attack.
She should not have worried. There was no need. The emerald radiance emanated only from grown up pumpkin seeds!
Jack-o-lantern's sat in alcoves set in the recesses of the stairwell's walls, wide grins glowing merrily as Luna approached them, as if they had been arraigned specifically to greet her. Each step brought a new orange gourd into view, a unique face carved into each that burned with a mysterious heat-less flame. Luna paused to examine this fey-fire, her eyes reflecting it's fitful light as they gazed deeply within. The longer she stared, the more the flames seemed to create rough shapes writhing in the flames. What appeared to be chaos resolved instead into a pony running, fleeing desperately from something without getting anywhere. Then the tiny figure seem to trip and fall, weeping as it had hurt it's hind leg. As Luna drew closer to the pumpkin, the tiny figure within flinched in fright, as though it had taken notice of her as well. Indeed it seemed to look right at Luna as it's weeping turned to quite laughter. A burst of flames shot out of the gourds eyes and mouth, causing Luna herself to jump backwards, startled!
Afterwards the princess was careful not too look too closely or too long at the light within the pumpkin shells, no matter how tempted she was by the bewitching lights.
It wasn't very hard to resist as the further down Luna went the less jovial the expression carved into the swollen rinds became. A smell of putrescence blighted the fog as the pumpkin's appeared to rot and decay, consumed by black and white splotches of mold. With every twist their expressions seemed to be more fearful and pained, the orange rinds more decayed and putrid. The worst part was that these faces were also more detailed, and thus more recognizable. Luna tried to ignore the jack-o-lanterns that bore the appearance of royal guards that had gone missing months before, as well as the images of missing family members that desperate peasants had provided to the princesses to try and find, but the hardest to ignore were the tiniest pumpkins that bore the visage of weeping children -those were the hardest to pass by.
Luna had some inkling as to how these ghastly lanterns had come to be, but it was not until she came across the alcove nearest the bottom of the stairs that she had frozen in her tracks. Unlike the older jack-o-lanterns this last one was so fresh that the carving still had juices spilling from the fat orange shell. The portrait that it bore was entirely unmistakable, though the details were still rough and undefined. Commander Hurricane looked sorrowfully up at Princess Luna, a great split bifurcating his ruined face, and at last she felt her heart lurch in her chest as it was seized by icy talons of terror. It was one thing to gaze at the ruined bodies of the Candy Mare's victims, it was quite another thing to gaze upon their tortured souls...
"She's only trying to scare you. Don't let her!" Luna sternly scolded herself.
The Princess of the Night had walked dreams and nightmares! She had seen things hundreds of times more horrible than this. Yet those had been the fancies conjured by sleeping minds. These supernatural manifestations were something all too real, despite their otherworldly quality.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer," Luna whispered to herself, closing her eyes against the grimacing apparition. "Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
"Does that little mantra help you?" asked the petulant voice of a child from the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. "Don't let your fears get the better of you now..."
A blue beam of pure magic exploded from the tip of Luna's horn and scythed through the gloom where the voice had come from. When it struck only flagstones, laughter exploded from the depths, echoing more explosion as the first blast was followed by a burst of several more beams of light fired wildly into the dark. When the dust finally cleared enough for Luna to see, she discovered that her attacks had done little more than shatter several crumbling gargoyles and a few stone sarcophagi. The dusty old skeleton of a unicorn noble flopped out of one such shattered resting place, it's skull glaring almost reproachfully up at the trigger happy alicorn.
"Hahahaha! Nice shooting ‘little moon’!" giggled the voice mockingly from further within the crypt that Luna found waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The mad laughter dwindled as the sound of tiny running hoof steps faded into the distance.
Luna took a moment to steady herself and get her breathing under control. Once she had thus steeled herself, she stepped into the catacombs proper, picking her way between the chunks of masonry that her wild blasts had created. She made a quiet apology to the skeleton she had disturbed before turning her full attention to her new surroundings. There were no pumpkin light here to brighten her path, though that was something of a relief, so Luna instead had to rely on the light from her horn once again to see by.
The stone ceiling here was low and Luna's horn occasionally scraped painfully against it. These tiny corridors were not intended for ponies the height of an alicorn to move through, even a smaller one like Princess Luna. Though this made the glow of her magic cut in and out occasionally, it still managed to light a seemingly endless expanse of arches supported by marble columns that stretched into oblivion. Stone sarcophagi, some with stylized statues set over them and others without, were lined up in regimented rows that spread out all around her. Some of these tombs were old indeed and had long since crumbled away on their own, while others still stood unblemished as if untouched by the passage of time. Thick fog coiled about her hooves and filled the room as far as she could see. The air here was thick with age and dust, and the low ceiling combined to make Luna long for the open air of the night sky.
Every now and then a fresh giggle would drift from one direction or another and Luna would just catch just a glimpse of glowing eyes darting behind a statue. The princess displayed great restraint, resisting the urge to once more fire her magic wildly at the darting form of her prey. Just one errant shot might obliterate a load bearing column and bury Luna under the weight of the castle above. Then the undead Candy Mare would just tunnel her way out, leaving Luna to suffocate even if she survived the initial collapse. Instead, keeping up her guard, the young monarch attempted to draw close enough to ensure that her next shot would not miss even if it meant that she was being drawn further into the crypt in the process.
Past the initial chamber the wide open space narrowed into a series of long tunnels, each lined with stacked alcoves that contained cobweb covered stone slabs, atop which the dusty remains of shroud wrapped bones lay. There were three of these corridors that slanted downwards into the earth. Down one, Luna caught a glimpse of a tiny figure peeking from atop one of the stone slabs. It stuck it's tongue out at her, rolling it's eyes crazily, before it darted out of sight. It was down this passage that Luna proceeded, hoping it was indeed the one the Candy Mare had chosen and that her overtaxed mind wasn't just playing tricks on her.
For a time nothing else of note occurred. The silence of the sepulchral surroundings was deafening compared to the icebound castle above. As Luna went further the ceiling seemed to grow lower and the hall grew more narrow, and rougher. Claustrophobia was not something Luna normally struggled with, but in this confined space where it would be difficult for her to even turn around, the tight spaces were starting to wear on her mind. Long ago the alcoves had gone from being slabs that held individual skeletons to being simply lined with piles of carefully sorted bones.
These were comparatively small cubbyholes filled with femurs, ribs, and meticulously sorted spinal vertebrae, all kept in some esoteric order as if keeping them organized was more imperative than remembering their prior owners. Perhaps these were the bones of ponies that no one could remember? Or maybe those who were not so noble as the ones who had earned their own sarcophagi up front? Were they simply being kept because there was no better place for them? Or maybe in the distant past someone thought it was a good idea to keep an inventory of bones just in case they needed a spare?
The idea made Luna laugh, and the sound of her own mirth so shocked her that she fell instantly into troubled thought. If she was finding humor in these ancient bones, how perilously close was she coming to losing her mind down here? The idea of her wits abandoning her so far underground, surrounded by nothing but stale death and cobwebs, made the blood in her veins turn to ice. It was imperative that she keep her mind in good order, lest she find her own resting place down here among the ancient dead. The dull, morbid monotony of this place was clearly wearing on her, but she needed to keep her thoughts from wandering.
It was almost a relief when the laughter returned. Luna quickened her pace, but as she ran after the echoes of mad mirth, the gleeful giggles turned to a sort of sing song chant that drifted in and out of earshot.
"Nightmare Night..."
It sounded like it was right in front of her one moment, and then behind her the next. Luna had not noticed that as she had gone deeper that the mist, which had started out around her legs, had risen to fill the corridor. The pale fog diffused the light from her horn to the point she could barely see more than a few feet in front of her now. She skidded to a halt as she realized she was running nearly blind at break neck speed.
"...What a Fright..."
Wait, did that come from behind her? Luna whirled, trying to pinpoint the sing-song voice, but no matter which way she went she seemed to come to a dead end. It was as if the corridors had closed up around her, leaving her in something akin to a laberynth. At the end of each walled off corridor she came to she was greeted only by the grinning skulls of the long deceased and some epitaph written in Pone-ish so ancient that she couldn't even begin to make it out.
It was as if the dead themselves were mocking her.
"...Give us Something..."
She couldn't give up now, not when her prey was so close.
However, the further she went, the stranger things became. Now the very walls, the columns, the floor and ceiling - all seemed to be made of bone! It was as if the foundations of the castle had been mortared with the bodies of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of little ponies. The ossified structures were far more artistic than the stone ones Luna had passed above. Here the arches were composed of skulls artfully arced between pillars of twisted spinal columns intricately woven together. Each wall seemed to contain a frieze that spread across it depicting giant winged unicorns made from the inlaid bones of various smaller ponies. These were depicted as wielding enormous calcified scythes or hourglasses more delicately carved than the finest ivory. The tiny cairns of foal skulls that marked the junction where the corridor split were particularly well made, fitting together as though the tiny craniums had been shaped purposefully while they yet lived to fulfill that role postmortem. Perhaps a tiny vice of some sort had been involved?
"Sweet... To... Bite..."
Luna no longer needed the magic of her horn now.
Huge chandeliers of bone that dripped with yellow tallow candles smoldered above her head in the widened space that she suddenly found herself in. It seemed Luna had stumbled blindly into some ancient heathen chapel. Everything, from alters to pews and mock stained glass windows, depicted winged unicorn skeletons descending from on high. These were wrought in the bones of the long forgotten and clothed in the brittle yellowed hides of the ancient dead. Despite the smokey amber glow of the ancient candles that filled this chamber Luna could not see the one that had led her into this waking nightmare. Where was the Candy Mare?
"Enough games! You said to come alone, and I am here!" bellowed Luna, her ire rising despite her fatigue. "If your purpose was to have me lose my mind in this labyrinth of bone, I cannot say that I am overly impressed. This historical excursion does little to unnerve me. I'm afraid if you were hoping that I would simply die of fright, I'm much closer to dying of boredom!"
"Well, so long as you die," cackled the Candy Mare, rising from beneath the alter of skulls and rib-cages. A huge grin was stretched wide across her freakish candy face. Instead of advancing, however, she turned away and glanced back over her shoulder. "But I'm afraid our history lesson isn't quite at an end yet. I promise, just a little further Princess... Unless you're scared?"
Luna spread her wings so fast there was a clap of thunder and, with a mighty downward sweep of her dark plumage, she launched herself like a missile towards the Candy Mare. Her horn was blazing and she was not about to let her enemy slip away again!
Though Luna rocketed past the alter in the blink of an eye, the Candy Mare had effortlessly dived backwards into a wide well that opened in the earth behind it. The princess plummeted after her into the sacrificial pit, the Candy Mare disappearing into the gloom below, her wild laughter echoing all the way down. The bottom of the pit was a long time coming, giving Luna ample time to consider how poor the choice was to follow this insane undead thing even deeper into the earth. Even so, Luna herself was a glorious sight, the brilliance of her horn streaking through the darkness like a star plucked from the heavens which plunged into the tenebrous depths which no light had penetrated before. Hers was the profile of the first fallen angel cast unto the abyss, glorious and terrible in equal measure. The Candy Mare would soon meet her match!
At last the well opened up into a wide antechamber that seemed to itself be part of a large network of caverns. Here the columns were no longer of bone or cut from stone but were instead formed by living rock, each slick with moisture that dripped slowly from above. There were no more dead bodies or tombs, nor any other mortuary fixtures of any kind. These seemed to be a far older, more primordial place of worship, that had not known mortal tread for some time. As Luna alighted on the onyx floor in that place of absolute darkness, she cast a spell that created an orb of light that rose high enough to cast it's radiance over the entirety of the gigantic subterrainean chamber.
The space turned out to be even more temple-like than the one carved from bone above. Indeed, it seemed that this place had served as inspiration for the morbid display found at the nadir of the catacombs, though that had been only a pale imitation. As striking as that had been it was nothing compared to the grandeur of natures mighty work which spread before Luna's eyes. Well, almost. There was at least a part of the cavern that had not been shaped by nature, but rather by the hooves of mortals. A giant mosaic stretched across the entirety of one cavern wall, the massive mural thousands of feet wide and hundreds of feet tall, dwarfed even the most extravagant works of art that Luna had ever seen. As the princess drew closer, she could see that what was depicted was an alicorn that looked very much like her, although it was far more wild and savage in appearance and appeared to be swooping down from the heavens like some great bird of prey.
Seated before it, staring up at it, was the Candy Mare.
At last, it seemed she would run no more.
Instead she spoke as if entranced.
"Once upon a time, they told legends about you. In secret, they worshiped the very idea of you. In the dark, they sacrificed to you. They begged you for blessings for themselves and beseeched you for curses on their enemies. They asked you to guard their dead as they slept eternally," the candy-coated pony seemed so small, so minuscule before the image that loomed above her, yet her voice filled the natural cathedral with ease. "They would harvest the teeth of the condemned, prisoners of war, and their own children to add one at a time to this graven image. An Idol to the ideal that your existence represents. The very best that each race had to offer combined into one supernaturally powerful being that, their faith assured them, must surely exist."
"We... Did not know. So much of our history has been lost. We were young when we lost our parents," whispered Luna, eyeing the massive image as if it might spring to life at any moment.
"So was I," confided the living corpse, for once all the lunacy drained from her voice. "Life can be cruel like that. But not as cruel as the reality that you truly represent. You see, to me an alicorn does not only embody the best of every other pony, but also the worst. All the flaws, imperfections, and weaknesses of our race are bound up inside you. In you is the haughty elitism of the unicorn, the harsh brutality of the pegasus, and the insipid naivete of the earth pony. Even so, you assert your 'royal sovereignty', declaring yourself a 'Princess' and command ponies to do your bidding, even if that means you send them to their deaths. Your very existence forces the tribes to swallow a pretty lie about 'Hearth's Warming Eve' and 'friendship', and about how they're 'all in this together' as they slave away in service of your whims."
"That's not true! Our subjects are not our slaves!" denied Luna, her feathers ruffling. "The power of friendship isn't a lie!"
"Isn't it though?" hissed the the ghoul through candy corn fangs as she tilted her head backwards, bending her spine unnaturally to gaze at Luna with an upside down grin. "You and your sister certainly don't seem to act like it's true ~ The way you argue with each other, posturing for your followers who pick sides between you. Siblings who are supposed to love one another, instead endlessly locked in a passive aggressive struggle for supremacy. Any scrap of recognition that you can get you greedily clutch at, each of you trying to out-do the other, all in hopes of duping all the little ponies into believing in you! Into worshiping you! Into treating you like the deities that they mistake you for."
"We are the protectors and stewards of Equestria!" declared the Princess of the Night, thunder booming in her Royal Canterlot Voice, "We watch over all of pony-kind! We guard them against horrid abominations like you! It's because of creatures like you that they die miserably! The sooner you cease to exist, the sooner they will know peace and prosperity!"
"Will they really?" spat the Candy Mare, twisting her body around at an unnatural angle, popping her dead bones like dry kindling. "Or will you just continue to sacrifice them on the alter of your own personal 'prosperity'? How long before you label other less 'abominable' creatures as impediments to your idea of 'peace'? I see a cold wind blowing through. I see days neither fun nor free. I see a future caused by you. I see a path not meant to be."
"You're wrong! That's not the kind of world we're trying to build!" exclaimed Luna, drawing dangerously close to her accuser. "I would never allow that!"
"Can you say the same for your sister?" The smile drained from the Candy Mare's face and her eyes grew wide as they stared deep into Luna's own. "Can you say the same for the sibling that ignores and mistreats her own kin? Lying to you about things you know to be true. Telling you that you are wrong about all those whispers of discontent and disdain that those little ponies make behind your back? Ponies have always been their own worst enemies. I'm living proof of that... for a given value of 'living' anyways. You think you're both in control, but you know only one of you truly can be. Only one of you will be able to shape the hearts and minds of your subjects. Look at that mural - it isn't two alicorns that the ponies worshiped long ago! It was one! There is only room in their hearts for one to rule them! Everything you fear is true!""
"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about!" A blast of magic erupted from Luna's horn at close range
After the flash, the Candy Mare was gone.
Not even a stain remained.
That was all it took to silence the menace once and for all!
"I did it. I did it! I did what you couldn't do sister! Me! Princess Luna!" she laughed hysterically, a combination of triumph and relief thick in her voice. Though the Candy Mare may have tried to twist her heart with her deceitful words, and break her mind with horrors, in the end she was nothing before the Princess of the Night!
Or so Luna thought.
Too late, she noticed that another's laughter had joined her own.
A freezing trickle of fear ran like ice water down Luna's spine as she whirled to face what was behind her.
In the dark, two glowing blue eyes swirled with pink madness opened wide.
Melting out of the shadows was, of course, the Candy Mare. It wouldn't be so easy to destroy a creature that had devoured so many lives.
"Ah, there it is, just like I said," the mad mare continued with a confident laugh. "The arrogance, the viciousness, and the gullibility! All the vileness of pony-kind concentrated into one deceptively graceful form. I was wondering why your sister wasn’t here with you. You actually wanted to steal all the glory for yourself! Wow! What hubris! What arrogance! I can't wait to hear you scream!"
Behind the gleeful ghoul, glowing eyes in every color of the rainbow suddenly flickered to life, filling the caverns with a chaotic rainbow of glaring horrors!
Skeletons!
Hundreds of them, held together by long dripping strands of multicolored taffy or strings of spun sugar stretched like sparkling tendons over their calcified forms! They clattered, creaked, and moaned as they surged jerkily from the gloom, scrabbling on the floor and crawling over the walls. Their candy filled maws spread wide in razor sharp grins as they surrounded the suddenly imperiled princess. The Candy Mare's mirth only rose in volume as it was joined by the dry, harsh laughter of the ancient dead.
"Hope you don't mind, but I thought it would be kind to let your oldest fans have a 'taste' of your sovereignty. They'll give you the royal treatment you truly deserve!" she giggled as the horde snapped their jaws hungrily. "Let the battle royal begin!"
Soon the stars would be aligned and Stygian could begin his spell.
Though he was not a Guardian like his friends, not a powerful warrior nor a skilled sorcerer, Stygian was and always had been a fine scholar. While Starswirl might busy himself crafting new magics, Stygian delved deep into the works of Pre-Equestrian authors and knew more on the subject of their secrets and mysteries than the entirety of of the Royal Collage combined. Those ancient civilizations did not have the benefit of Equestria's harmony, or even the tentative peace of the three tribes, so they had guarded their secrets well behind archaic riddles and complex codes. Many an academic could spend their entire life trying to transcribe and understand the significance of a single tome with little success. Not Stygian, however, for he had collected and deciphered everything from papyrus to clay tablets from all corners of the world. Instead of bashing his head against the wall of the conundrum of just one civilization, he had sought to understand all of what history had to offer and, in so doing, he had found insight into enigmas that had thwarted the best minds of his age by cross referencing, comparing and contrasting, puzzles and solutions from a wide array of disciplines. It was by doing so that he had first come across the tales of the legendary ponies that he would one day gather together to form the Pillars of Equestria, after all, so to say he had some success where others found only failure would be something of an understatement. Of course, compared to unraveling the mystery of Ponehenge, those achievements had been little more than a warm-up.
Even in the ancient times Stygian had studied the true purpose and meaning of the circle of rune covered stones had been lost to the mists of time. Before the three tribes had settled in the lands that they had so recently been forced to abandon, the civilization which had erected Ponehenge had already gone extinct. Wiped out by famine or flood, or perhaps simply lost to the less dramatic forces of progress and entropy, all that was known about those who had raised those monolithic stones was that they were druids who spoke their own dialect of early Pone-ish. The construction consisted of a circular stone foundation upon which a central dais had been raised and around that had been erected six massive obelisks that curved inward towards the center like the fangs of some hungry beast. Had it been carved by ancient tools or was it constructed by raw magic? Was it gifted to some forgotten tribe by ancient alicorns or maybe some far more advanced race lost to the annals of history? No one living could say for certain as even translating the runes carved into the stone surfaces offered little in the way of answers.
What had Ponehenge been for? Some great working of magic or ritual? A way to chart the movements of the stars? Or merely a way to help keep track of the seasons? Perhaps it was just a collosal practical joke played by the prehistoric world on its descendants? It was any pony's guess. Ah, but Stygian did not have to guess! Stygian knew what the circle of stones was for. Or at least what he could use them to achieve.
Not long after he had discovered the primordial monuments location he had been able to determine that, whatever it's purpose had originally been, it lay at the very center of the spot where a complex matrix of ley-lines intersected. These invisible channels of power funneled magic naturally through the land and could be found all over Equestria. The flow of power was essential to the health of the land and those that inhabited it. Normally, magical beings like ponies would benefit from the power channeled by such ley-lines passively, absorbing the energy in the same qay they absorb oxygen by breathing air, the magic would saturate them simply by existing. Some ponies, perhaps more receptive, absorbed this power more readily and became particularly skilled unicorns, agile pegasi, or physically gifted earth ponies. Learned sorcerers, of course, knew how to tap into these ley-lines directly and could siphon the magic from the earth to aid in the working of larger and more complex spells than a single pony should normally be able to achieve on their own.
Stygian was no learned sorcerer, but with the sheer number of ley-lines overlapping one another where Ponehenge stood he did not need to be. In normal circumstances it would be dangerous to tap into one of these magical channels, even for a great wizard. If done improperly, draining the magic from the land could have dire consequences for all living things in the immediate vicinity and unpredictable impacts on the balance of nature in general. Ponehenge, however, nimbly circumvented that danger by having the standing stones serve as both insulators and batteries for the magical power. No matter how much power one drew here, it would be almost impossible to drain enough to truly do the land any lasting harm. It would be like Stygian was drawing water from a lake with a silly-straw, no matter how much he could possibly draw with his crude abilities the relative level of the lake would remain unchanged, and even if he did draw too much the stones would naturally replenish it over time. By accident or design, Ponehenge was the perfect place for a pony like Stygian to duplicate the powers of his friends, and to safely create powerful artifacts that anypony could wield!
No, not just anypony, but Stygian himself!
For too long he had been the pony that needed saving, that had to stand aside uselessly while others put their lives on the line. For too long he had been relegated to merely recording the adventures of other ponies while doing his best to stay safely out of the way. Now it would be Stygian's turn to do the saving and taking risks! Now it would be his adventures that others would write about! Now, at last, it would be his turn to save the day. He would finally be able to lay the burden of the guilt he felt, which lay so heavily upon his heart, aside and stand beside the Pillars of Harmony without shame!
Or so he hoped. Surely they would understand why he had done as he had done once they saw the fruits of his labor.
"The artifacts have each been aligned correctly with the planets," muttered Stygian to himself as he made the last few adjustments to his calculations. "The central dais is bathed in moonlight. Everything is set. In a few minutes I should be able to begin."
"No Stygian, I think you will find that you are already finished!" boomed the powerful voice of Starswirl the Bearded, full or righteous fury and indignation.
Before Stygian had a chance to respond, a blast of magic forced him to jump away from Starswirl's tome of sorcery, the very artifact he needed most to enact his spell successfully. As the tiny unicorn looked up in shock, he could see that all of the Pillars were here and that they each glared at him accusingly. He had seen that thunderous look in their eyes many times before now, but never directed at himself; That was the look that his friends had always reserved for right before the moment when they were about to defeat a villain...
"Stygian, how could you lad?" asked Rockhoof, genuine dismay and despondency in his voice. "Of all of us, I can understand how helpless you feel without an artifact of power - I was a scrawny colt myself before I raised my shovel. But what I can't understand is why you think that gives you the right to steal from your friends!"
"I had no choice!" pleaded Stygian, the unicorn scholar backing away from their judgmental stares. "I asked, again and again, but you never gave my requests a second thought. No matter how I presented my ideas they were always put upon a shelf in favor of some other matter. Each of you in turn ignored what I had to say and drove me to this!"
"So that makes it alright? Stygian we put our trust in you." asked Mistmane, lifting the vase that held her orchid from its resting place at the base of the obelisk where Stygian had so carefully positioned it. As the scribe watched helplessly, each of the Pillars reclaimed their artifacts one by one. "We thought you were our friend. Now that faith is damaged and it might never recover."
"I-I never intended for that happen..." stammered Stygian, trying to explain. "Your friendship means much to me, b-b-but even so..."
"Whatever your intentions, it is your actions that have condemn you," replied Mage Meadowbrook, donning her mask. "A trusted friend would not take from another without asking, and even if they did they would apologize if caught. That you're still trying to justify stealing from us, even now, it leaves us wondering if you were ever truly our friend at all. Because of this, we cannot allow you to have your way."
"Quite so," agreed Starswirl, his eyes glowing menacingly beneath the brim of his hat. "Stygian, in honor of your past aid to Equestria, we will not punish you for your treachery. But we can no longer trust you, nor can we risk you further undermining our cause. I hereby cast you out. No more will we tolerate your presence among us. Stygian, by the power invested in me by the royal sisters, you are forthwith banished! You will no longer be allowed to have any contact with the Guardians of Harmony or any of the individual Pillars in any fashion!"
"But- but where where will I go? What will I do?" asked Stygian at a loss. He had devoted his life to the Guardians of Harmony and to the cause of defending Equestria.
Without that, who was he?
What was he?
"Frankly Stygian, it matters not to me," answered the sorcerer, turning his back on his former friend with a flourish of his cloak, the bells sewn into its hem chiming with more finality than the toll of a funeral bell. "Come my friends. We have lost enough time on this distraction. The princesses... Neigh, the very realm of Equestria needs us!"
With that, the ponies who had been his friends all turned from him and galloped towards their next adventure. Stygian hung his head low and sat in a motionless heap at the center of Ponehenge. He could still feel the power of this place, so tantalizingly close, yet so far away. He could have seized it still. He could have channeled that power into himself. But without an artifact to contain it the magic would leech away back into the soil in no time at all. Stygian, sickly and weak, simply had not been born the kind of unicorn that could handle such magic on his own.
Instead Stygian chose to give in to his despair. A momentous choice, with far-reaching consequence even the wisest could not fathom. He hunched his shoulders and hung his head so low his horn nearly scraped the ground. Stygian turned from his friends path and walked, maudlin and weeping, into the shadows.
Flash Magnus turned back and hovered in the air for a moment, watching Stygian trudge away. Taking Netitus from his back, he looked down at the reflection of himself in the shields polished surface. He was not sure he liked what he saw. The hard look in his eyes softened, and his brow furrowed in thought. "Did we do the right thing here? What if Stygian really was just trying to help? He seemed more misguided than truly treacherous. Besides, what if he was right and his way was the only way to defeat this evil - or perhaps even some greater evil down the road?"
"Even were that so, it was not his place to make that decision unilaterally," responded Starswirl, though much of the fury had faded from his old voice. Now he sounded merely tired. "It took me years of study to craft the spells held in the pages of my tome. It took Meadowbrook and Mistmane time to master their crafts as well. You should already know that it takes more than strapping on a shield to make a soldier, just as it takes more than simply lifting Rockhoof's shovel to make a hero. Somnambula's blindfold draped over his eyes would merely rob Stygian of his sight. Until he understands this, our power in Stygian's hooves would be a terrible threat to Equestria no matter how noble his intentions."
"If Stygian is truly our friend, then in time he will will realize how deeply he has wronged us and will find a way to apologize for what he has done," reasoned Somnambula, as she took wing beside the legionary. "Fret not Flash. I have hope that we will be seeing him again soon. I'm sure the day when we make amends with one another and put all this trouble behind us is not far off."
"I hope you're right," Still, Flash could not take his eyes off the retreating form of his erstwhile friend. He watched until the scholars silhouette faded from sight, and only then did he turn to catch up with the others.
"Still, perhaps this has not been a total loss," considered Mistmane, "That place that Stygian discovered was astonishing, and far more ancient than even the palaces of my homeland. Never have I felt such an enormous amount of natural magic gathered in one place outside of the Everfree Forest."
"It's true," agreed Starswirl, remembering the glimpse of the runes he had seen carved into the surface of the obelisk beneath which his tome had lain. "Stygian may have inadvertently led us to the ancient site of Ponehenge. If so, then that is exactly what we may need to accomplish my latest spell! We might have to sacrifice ourselves in the process, but if we had a way of luring the Candy Mare back to that circle of stones then we could open a portal to Limbo and banish her once and for all!"
"We can try to think of a plan on the way, comrades," insisted Rockhoof, as his long legs ate up the ground. "But in the mean-time, we have a princess that needs saving!"
Magic flashed in the dark under the world like a strobe light. It made the already halting movements of the candy-coated skeletons all the more strange and herky-jerky as they were caught in disjointed motion. In an endless wave the ancient dead lunged for Princess Luna, their teeth snapping mere inches from her face, yet so far they had yet to reach her. Though she was not the best at defensive spells Luna had managed to erect a bubble of protection around herself. Already it was being sorely tested by the press of rotting bones so, rather than rely on her failing defense, the princess instead fired off a steady stream of blasts from her horn into the musty throng of unicorn ancestors. Each azure beam shattered the fierce but fragile undead into shards and pieces but, unfortunately for the cornered alicorn, as fast as she obliterated them they were replaced by even more cackling crypt creatures. It seemed as though the entirety of the catacombs was emptying into the cavern for just a chance to taste her flesh!
Despite their sheer numbers, the skeletons weren't that much of a threat. They didn't seem to be that smart and their multitudes actually worked against them as they kept getting in each others way. In truth they were more like a very angry wall than a force of opposition. However, their relentless nature kept her having to defend herself from attacks that came from every angle. Some of the skeletons even scrambled across the ceiling to drop on her magic bubble from above, cracking the shell even as they fractured their own bones. As it was, Luna could not use her wings or superior agility to escape, or to even gain ground. Indeed, she was steadily losing ground and soon enough there would be no more room between her and the wall at her back.
No, the real threat was that the deathless horde served as cover for the Candy Mare. Every now and then, out from between the cadaverous mob would spring the mare herself with her eyes blazing with hate, her shrieks of cruel laughter piercing Luna's ears. The Candy Mare would shift her shape and change in bizarre ways as she attacked; a flash of teeth would turn into a whirring saw blade, then shift into a spider limb to try and poke through a gap in her defenses, then change into an enormous hammer-like appendage that could temporarily crack her magic shield like an egg. This would be followed with a sweep of talons that would have decapitated a lesser pony, then Luna would desperately get her shield up at the last moment to stop an explosion of razor sharp whips of licorice from opening up her hide. Then, of course, when Luna was finally in a position to counter attack, the Candy Mare would melt giggling back into the skeletal legion as if she had never been there at all. The sugary spook was swift as she was deadly and the princess would have fallen dead a dozen times over were it not for Luna's powerful magic and quick thinking.
Sadly, even this seemed to feed into the Candy Mare's overall plan. As dangerous and frightening as the ravenous revenant's attacks were they were not meant to kill Luna, only to keep her distracted and from coming up with any real plan of action. This was the trap that Luna had so arrogantly walked into, thinking no matter how terrible it might be that she would find a way out of it. Even now, the alicorn's mind was whirring with possible actions she might take to free herself, but every time she tried to focus the Candy Mare would dart in to harry her. It was clear the monstrous mare didn't want Luna's end to be quick... She wanted her to suffer first. The Candy Mare wanted to hear Luna scream and to take her time savoring the sound.
Not that the Princess of the Night intended to give the fiend that satisfaction.
"Hold still you disgusting monstrosity!" cried Luna, fighting down the sense of desperation with rising animosity as she tried to blast the candy coated fiend.
"Takes one to know one~!" the Candy Mare mocked in a sing song voice, creating a candy claw that closed and snipped like scissors where Luna's hooves had been but moments ago. Luna deftly jumped backwards this time, but next time there would be nowhere left to go. "Ooh, watch out! Almost got you that time!"
"I promise I'll make your end swift!" cried Luna, opting to create a massive orb of magic to push back the wall of skeletons rather than blasting them apart. The move bought her some space, but not enough to make a difference.
"And I promise to make your end slow!" clapped back the Candy Mare with a grin so wide the top of her head nearly fell off. Yet the cannibal cadaver didn't press her attack, instead hanging back with her skeletal army for the space of a few heartbeats.
That was all the opening the Luna needed, as she focused all of her magic not on her enemies but on the cavern floor that they stood upon. With a huge concussive explosion, the rock gave way beneath both the skeletons and the Candy Mare! They fell, jaws still snapping and limbs flailing, but with no ground beneath them there was little that the ancient dead could do but surrender to gravity. As a cloud of dust filled the chamber, Luna fell into a coughing fit, before she was able to blow back a little of the cloud with her wings.
Of the Candy Mare there was no sign.
Had she really fallen with the rest? Or had she been blown to bits by the spell? Maybe she was buried beneath enough rock and bones now that she wouldn't be able to move. Luna couldn't be certain.
Tentatively, the princess peeked over the rim of the hole.
The air was still too thick with powdered bone and pulverized rock for her to make out anything below.
Should she need descend into the hole to finish off her enemy? Or should she take this opportunity to flee?
Before Luna could decide on her next action, a rumbling rose from the pit that shook the cavern floor.
Luna gasped as before her eyes as something enormous rose from the pit. She fired beam after beam of magic into the thing, but her spells were little more than pin pricks to the rising monstrosity! A pair of massive claws slammed down on either side of Luna as a truly titanic amalgamation of candy and bone hefted it's bulk over the rim of the hole.
At first Luna's mind had difficulty processing the exact shape of the thing that she was seeing, so colossal was it, but in due time the things form resolved into one that was all too familiar. Before the princess stretched the serpentine bulk of an enormous elder dragon wrought from candy and bone! The shattered bones of the unicorn skeletons had clearly gone into it's make up, as the horns of thousands of dead unicorns bristled across it's long neck, across it's shoulders, and down it's spine to the tip of a tail that thrashed away the last of the cloud of dust. This new threat that loomed menacingly over her filled the chamber from floor to ceiling, blocking any chance of escape!
This 'candy dragon' had rows of shark-like pointed teeth made from broken femurs and giant peppermint sticks. It possessed a mane of red and black licorice that whirled in a fiery nimbus around it's immense skull. The things eyes were gargantuan lollipops that swirled with malice in every color of the rainbow. Thousands of eyes and candy corn fanged mouths erupted all over the surface of the monstrosities body, long black and orange striped tongues wagging from the latter like writhing serpents while the former glowed with barely contained power. It was clear to see that the Candy Mare had absorbed the skeletons that Luna had destroyed and had added their tremendous bulk to her own. Her already nightmarish face had become an even more horribly distorted fever dream, now studded with laughing skulls that blazed with stolen magic!
With barely seconds to pour her reserves into re-enforcing her magic shield, Luna was sent skidding as a massive back hand from one bone-studded appendage sent her hurtling into the cavern wall.
The Candy Dragon's voice had deepened to a truly demonic growl as her size had grown, and in a voice like a thunderclap it roared, "I'm going to break each and every one of your bones!"
Then tiny voices of thousands of ancient dead joined in from all over it's body and began to speak in a babble, adding their own promises of pain to come:
"We'll break them starting with the tiniest, and leave that pretty skull of yours for last!"
"Put out your eyes!"
"Eat your tongue!"
"Pluck the feathers from the twisted remains of your broken wings!"
"Then we'll peel back your skin!"
"Take our time slowly stripping away the fat and meat!"
"Only after that will we pop your organs one by one between our teeth!"
The beast at last bellowed, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" The Candy Mare's insanity subsumed by the fury of a thousand years of distilled resentment at last given vent. As if for emphasis, enormous skeletal wings erupted from the dragon's back, and filled the cavernous camber from end to end.
Luna's back was now literally against the wall. She had to stand on her hind legs against the mosaic behind her as the air pressure from the hurricane force of the Candy Dragon spreading it's cadaverous wings pressed her backwards. She could feel the cool tiles against her skin, and for a moment she drew comfort from them before she remembered they were made from the polished teeth of sacrifices embedded into the bedrock long ago.
"But never fear, when I finally let you die, that won't be the end," mocked the ghoulish kaiju, as something of the Candy Mare's original madness rose to the surface. "I'll fill you up with candy and puppet your pathetic corpse for your sisters amusement! Then I'll have you make your sibling suffer and scream just like you're about to! After that you can finally be equals - in death! Bwahahahahah!"
With that, the draconic abomination began to inhale, filling it's massive rotting lungs with the dusty air to the point that Luna had to hold on to a nearby stalagmite for dear life to avoid being swallowed up herself. The unicorn horns studding the length of the Candy Dragon's body began to glow, pulsing in waves of magic that started with a low hum and built to an ear piercing whine as the illumination steadily grew brighter, sweeping up the creatures long spine. As its jaws spread impossibly wide a point of blinding phosphorescence, bright as the flame of an acetylene torch, began to coalesce at the back of the creature's throat. The fiend stopped inhaling and, for a moment, all was silent save for the thrum of raw magic and then - BOOM! A massive column of super-heated candy and bone erupted from the monsters malformed maw, slamming into Luna's magic barrier with enough force to bend it backwards. Immediately the magical breath weapon ate into the alicorn's spell-craft; molten rock, candy, and bone sizzling against the cavern wall ad it ran around Luna's hooves in smoking rivulets.
"It doesn't need to end this way," whispered a dark voice that echoed strangely inside of Luna's head.
"Who... Is there?" cried out the princess through gritted teeth, all her might and attention focused on withstanding the onslaught that pinned her against the wall. "How?"
"I can offer you more power than you have ever dreamed of," replied the voice seductively. "Far more power than that of your sister. Much more even than the behemoth you now face. All you have to do is..."
"What?" Luna could barely spare the breath from her lungs to ask, so great was the force she struggled against. The alicorn could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears and Luna's chest heaved as she panted out the words "What do... I have... To do!?"
"Embrace the darkness. Give in to despair," answered the voice, vibrating down into the core of Luna's being. "Let me in! Become the Pony of Shadows! Then you'll have nothing to fear anymore, little moon!"
Despite her predicament those last words touched something deep inside of the imperiled princess. A nerve that had been rubbed raw by being overlooked, misjudged, and ignored one too many times. Despite a lingering and horrible death looming before her, Luna's despondency and dismay were nothing compared to the rage and indignation she felt well up inside her.
"I am no one's little moon!" Luna roared, her aura exploding into a nimbus of burning black fire that shattered the mural behind her, stone and all, and even forced back the torrent of the Candy Dragon's breath weapon causing the colossus to flinch away and stop it's attack. "AND I! AM! NOT! AFRAID!"
The blaze of dark power grew into a towering conflagration, a flaming vortex that bore through the ceiling like a massive drill and pierced through to the surface high above. In one terrifying eruption a massive well opened through the concealing earth and the storm high in the sky alike to reveal the light of the full moon at the apex of the heavens. In that moment the orbs silvery light turned to blood as the face of the moon was cast into shadow. That ruddy illumination bled over the silhouette of a new terror that caused the very earth to tremble in her newly born presence.
She was an alicorn still, but she was much taller than Princess Luna had been, and her hide glistened black as the abyss against the scarlet light of the eclipse. Her mane and tail swirled about her like clouds of purple flame, shot through with a myriad of dying stars and spiralling galaxies. Unlike Luna, this darkling creature was sheathed in stunning armor emblazoned with the mark of the crescent moon. From an ornate helm, her horn jutted long and needle sharp, the magic radiating from it like a forest fire held barely in check. A predators slit cerulean eyes that no longer needed light to see in the dark opened wide above a mouth filled with a carnivores fangs; A mouth that spread into a murderous grin as the nightmare given flesh spoke in a soft voice filled with confidence;
"I am one with the night. I am what haunts your waking hours and plagues your dreams! I am Nightmare Moon!" the alicorn declared, spreading voluminous wings as black as midnight as her mane and tail exploded into a swirling sable inferno. "And even the dead will not escape my wrath!"
"Big deal," croaked the Candy Dragon, with a sardonic smile that looked awkward stretched across it's reptilian skull, "So you can transform! So can I. That's not very impressi-”
Whatever the beast was about to say was lost in a deafening explosion as a pillar of unlight tore through the dragon's face and dashed its mammoth head to flinders! In response the Candy Dragon's headless body turned into a tidal wave of candy and bone that threatened to crush the lone pony beneath an avalanche of death and decay! But the tsunami was forced back as the subterranean chamber shook violently from wave after wave of black flames that shot from Nightmare Moon in a relentless tide of might! The dark magic engulfed the cavern and stripped candy flesh from brittle bone, incinerating both in a nuclear holocaust that burned so hot it turned every surface of that darkling place to smooth black glass when it finally cooled hours later.
But by that time, every trace of the Candy Mare and of Nightmare Moon had long since gone from that place.
The Candy Mare snapped awake, shock written across her face.
Her senses flowed back into her body in the throne room, the flakes of gore stained snow drifting gently around her as she rose from a pile of red snow which she had hidden her original body in.
The Candy Mare had known it would be dangerous to take on an alicorn after she had seen what the power of the one known as Celestia had done to her candy ghouls. Because of this, she had wisely taken the precaution of making body doubles out of a few of her victims to lure Luna deep into the catacombs away from her true self. As a bonus, the Candy Mare was able to use these proxies to attack Luna without putting herself at risk. Hiding multiple copies of herself among the comparatively weaker skeleton marionettes she had cultivated from the crypt made it seem like she was attacking lightning fast from multiple different angles at once, which she had hoped would have been enough of an advantage to keep Luna off balance and distracted.
All of that had gone as anticipated, but he Candy Mare had not expected that Luna would lash out with an explosive force that even exceeded the power Celestia had displayed once she had been pushed to the brink of defeat. The sentry that the Candy Mare had interrogated had given the impression that the so-called 'Princess of the Night' was the weaker and more cowardly of the two. Had she been lied to? It was hard to imagine given that the cannibal corpse had tasted Sugar Plum's mind directly when she had chomped into her brains. Perhaps the guard had simply not known the true depths of Luna's power and what she was capable of? That was possible. However, that didn't seem to be all that was at play here.
There was a dark power saturating the catacombs. It had been as much because of that supernatural force as it's shelter from the sun that had driven the Candy Mare to choose the site as her lair. She had thought that it would also make the place perfect to lay a trap for those allies of the forces of light who had hunted her, as she saw them as a mutual enemy to both herself and whatever shadowy presence called those cavernous depths their home. The Candy Mare had thought the shadowy force would empower her and weaken her enemies, but it seemed whatever that gloomy energy truly was it had no interest in dead creatures like herself and had instead sought to corrupt the living.
Perhaps this Luna truly was not like her sister and was herself more a creature of darkness rather than one born of the light? The Candy Mare had felt the shadows reaching out to Luna, almost like an eager hound bounding towards it's would-be master. But it didn't seem like that evil force had truly claimed the princess either. At the last moment, Luna had rejected the presence that had tried to invade her mind and soul and had instead unleashed an even more unspeakably dreadful power from within. Just what kind of creature was she?
What exactly was this 'Nightmare Moon' that had awakened in the dark and burned away centuries of old ghosts and blood-stained sacrificial stone?
"I hate ponies so much sometimes," groaned the Candy Mare, rubbing her temples with her candy coated hooves. There was no real hope that she could sooth away the residual pain from losing a thousand surrogate bodies, not when they had all evaporated at once like that. She'd be feeling the ache of their loss for days. "They do seem to just love to pull new bullshit powers out of nowhere."
As the rotten revenant slowly stretched, she rose from her hiding place and slumped over to King Bullion's ruined throne, across which the tired Candy Mare draped herself. She felt uncharacteristically lethargic, her limbs heavy, like she was moving through pudding instead of air. As she tried to account for the feeling, a strange sound suddenly caught her attention. The Candy Mare turned her head slowly and peeked over the top of the throne, her long licorice hair spilling limply across the gore slick stone. Staring into the darkened hallway that led down into the crypt, she thought she heard the noise a second time. Despite the throbbing in her head, she listened intently, and at last caught the sound of a quiet sniffle.
The soft cadence of gentle weeping drifted from just beyond the shadows...
"Oh...no!" she cried indigently, her hackles rising. "Oh no no no no no! No you don't!"
The Candy Mare turned her back on the noise and settled down in the throne with a pout, crossing her forelegs across her chest as she sulked.
"I know this trick. I practically invented this trick! You make it sound like you're some lost or wounded child crying in the dark, I go to investigate, and then you get the jump on me. This is so insulting! I am actually insulted right now! You think you can trick me with this 'wHaT's tHat NoiSe? I bEtTeR gO cHeCk oN tHeM' nonsense right here and right now!? Nope! Nuh-uh! Not gonna happen! You're not gonna jump my candy coated behind that easily! If you want a piece of me, you can come out here and get it!"
As if accepting the invitation, Nightmare Moon suddenly stood before the candy coated corpse with a vicious grin plastered across her face, her horn wrapped in a nimbus of dark light pointed right between the Candy Mare's eyes. Without uttering so much as a word, a beam of magic shot from her horn and reduced Bullion's throne to a smoldering ruin. The Candy Mare had just barely dodged, assuming a twisted and contorted pose on the floor beside the charred remains of her stolen royal seat. Even so, she looked up at her attacker with her own manic grin, clearly pleased with this turn of events.
"Now that's more like it!" the Candy Mare growled, her sweet sugary exterior melting off of her bones and coating the ground beneath the princess's hooves instead. Mouths with needle sharp teeth erupted from the candified surface, snapping and biting to try and devour the alicorn from below!
Undeterred, Nightmare Moon took wing, rising into the air to escape her enemy's attack and launching a counter of her own as she rained down explosive orbs of magic. She went a step further, carpet bombing the entire room, but the Candy Mare shot up from the firestorm and clung to the ceiling with candy hooks that extended from her limbs. Hanging upside down, her licorice mane whipped out to wrap around the frozen bodies that hung there and, using them for purchase, pulled herself this way and that as she used them to dart away. Bobbing and weaving between the bodies Nightmare Moon gave chase, firing her magic randomly, unconcerned with what her shots did to the already desecrated corpses.
"Someone's a little hot under the collar! Let's see if we can cool you down!" shouted the Candy Mare as she took a firmer grip of two frozen corpses with her licorice tendrils, breaking the icy pair from the rafters at the knee to hurl them both at her pursuer.
Without a moments hesitation Nightmare Moon obliterated the cold cadavers, but as their remains rained down in frosty chunks of gore she had no choice but to halt her advance until the air was cleared. In the split second that the dark princess had dealt with the Candy Mare's frozen left-overs, the alicorn lost sight of her prey. It seemed the attack had just been a distraction to let the spook slip out of sight! Nightmare Moon hovered for a moment, uncertain, as the sounds of mocking child-like laughter echoed in the rafters.
"It will do you no good to hide from me," hissed Nightmare Moon, a forked tongue darting between her fangs. "Not here, not now. You can never escape!"
"Who said I was trying to escape?" came a gentle whisper in her ear as the corpse-cicle that hung right next to her broke it's frosty shell and wrapped it's ice coated limbs around the princess!
All around her the dead were coming to life, cracking loose from the ceiling as they crawled towards her, smothering the alicorn underneath their rotten flesh. Nightmare Moon was lost under the wriggling mass of pale bodies, at least briefly, before an explosion of un-light sent more icy chunks of dead ponies raining down to the floor below.
"You'll need to do better than that!" gloated Nightmare Moon, her eyes blazing with power.
"Oh, I intend to!" cried the Candy Mare gleefully from below. All around her an army of candy ghouls, former soldiers that she had stolen away from their camp in the night, had risen from their hiding places under the drifts of scarlet snow. Each of them was uniquely mutated, brandishing candy versions of the spears they had wielded in life that had now grown from their own bodies. "Soldiers of the Royal Guard, show your princess what you're made of!"
Striking like lightning, the candy ghouls hurled themselves into the air with unnatural speed on candy coated wings, surrounding Nightmare Moon on all sides. Their spears slammed home, impaling their former ruler from every direction, ripping an agonized scream from the alicorn's throat as her blood misted the freezing air. The long sharp blades sawed through meat and bone, flaying flesh and severing arteries, tearing the transfixed princess open. The Candy Mare danced below in delight, joyfully lolling out her long black and orange striped tongue to catch the droplets of her enemies life-blood as they fell like rain, the hot deluge tasting both salty and sweet!
But Nightmare Moon was not so easily felled. With a roar, a burning sphere of darkness enveloped her body, vaporizing the ghoulish guards and the hafts of their candy weapons along with them. Still, the damage had been done, and the broken shafts of candy spears now bristled all over her body, their candy coated blades buried deep inside her body.
"Second unit, rise!" snarled the Candy Mare, blood lust writ all over her face. One by one the piles of blood stained snow exploded as more candy ghouls rose from their cover. While the first wave had been armed with candy spears, these were equipped with candy bows strung with licorice draw stings. Each took careful aim with wickedly barbed peppermint arrows at the target above while, at the same time, sharp spikes of candy rose all over the Candy Mare's body as if she had become a candified porcupine! The spikes ran all along her back from her head down to her tail, leaving her veritably bristling with candy quills as she roared, "Volley!"
All at once, each candy coated soldier fired! Arrows of candy filled the air as the Candy Mare launched her own barbs along with them. It was Nightmare Moon's turn to dodge and weave in the rafters, but try as she might she could not hope to avoid every sugary dart. Under a steady fusillade, the alicorn's movements began to slow - her wings were torn to shreds as her life flowed faster from the many fresh wounds that were rent open all over her bleeding body from the cruelly penetrating shots that pierced every part of her. The thorn-like barbs hooked and tore at her flesh, stripping her hide so that the meat beneath glistened and steamed in the cold air.
At last, Nightmare Moon's strength gave out and she came crashing down to the floor in an ungainly heap.
"Hold your fire!" commanded the Candy Mare, with a triumphant grin. The pony predator stalked her fallen enemy as a big cat might stalk a wounded bird, still wary of any last minute tricks but plainly eager to make the kill, goaded on by the scent of the steaming crimson flow that pumped steadily out of the wounded royal's veins. The spreading pool of blood beneath Nightmare Moon seemed convincing enough to let condescension reign in the candy cannibals words as she said, "So this is how it ends. After all that sound and fury, you come to nothing. Just one more frightened sheep to the slaughter!"
"Is that... What you think I am?" moaned Nightmare Moon through ragged breaths. Despite the pain she was clearly in, she still smiled wickedly as her would be killers approach. "A black sheep?"
In reply the Candy Mare leaned down and lapped at the rapidly cooling blood that spread around the princess. Gulping the viscous viscera, letting the ruby droplets drain luxuriously down her throat, a smile of true satisfaction spread on the monster's gore slick face. She licked her blood stained candy corn teeth clean and sighed, eyes half lidded in contentment.
Tilting her head to one side, the Candy Mare answered "You all taste the same to me," She raised a forelimb, the leg lengthening into the shape of a huge executioners ax, the edge serrated along it's edge with sharp candy corn fangs. "Why, did you think you were something else? Something special?"
"Naturally," wheezed the dying princess, her eyes glazing over, but her grin never leaving her lips as she whispered, "I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing."
"Doesn't matter to me," countered the dead mare, cold indifference flooding her voice. "Meat is meat. It all cuts the same beneath the cleaver!"
With that, the curved ax blade fell with a crunch as it bit deep into Nightmare Moon's long, smooth neck.
The Candy Mare snapped awake, shock written across her face.
Her senses flowed back into the throne room, the flakes of gore stained snow drifting gently around her as she sat bolt upright in King Bullion's throne.
What had just happened?
Had she dozed off for a minute there?
There were lapses in her memory she sometimes couldn't account for, when the ceaseless hunger that drove her overrode her sense of self and she became little more than a killing engine, but this felt different. She had been locked in battle with an enemy but moments ago.
So what had happened to her?
That was when Nightmare Moon's head landed in her lap. This on its own would not have been that shocking, but what made the Candy Mare nearly jump out of her seat was when the head turned and looked up at her with it's dead eyes and, in her fathers voice, asked, "Why did you have to go and eat your papa, Pumpkin?"
With a yelp of surprise the Candy Mare flailed at the severed head and sent it flying across the room where it landed with a soft plop on its side, still facing towards her.
The decapitated head melted and morphed - It no longer bore Luna's features, but was instead a face from a lifetime ago that she had last seen in a candy shop in a long gone unicorn town. Cabbage Patch had sadness in his frost covered eyes as he said "I know things were tough on the farm. There were times your ma and I barely had anything to eat ourselves. But what little we had we made sure to give to you, love. So why then did you eat your daddy? Why did you gobble me up? Didn't we feed you enough?"
"Oh you bitch," whispered the Candy Mare under her breath, before continuing more loudly, "Illusion magic!? You're going to use illusions on me now? Do you seriously think that's going to save you? All you're going to do with this nonsense is piss me off, and I have to admit that's going to be quite the feat because I thought I was already about as pissed off as I could get! You keep up this kind of crap, we're going to be hitting levels of pissed off that have hear-to-fore been unachievable by ponykind!"
With that, the Candy Mare jumped off the throne and in midair an appendage morphed out of her back and came down like a hammer on the severed head, smashing it like an overripe watermelon. Grey matter and black blood spraying in every direction, but at least the despondent voice from her past was silenced. The Candy Mare looked around, certain that her enemy was still nearby, wary of any fresh tricks.
As she scanned the room, something else fell from above. At first the candy coated mare thought it was just one of the many corpses from her larder, until this one stood up jerkily without her command. Unlike the flash frozen cadavers, this corpse still had most of the meat on its bones and her long grey hair cascaded down from her head like a waterfall, hiding her features. A low death rattle rose from the dead pony's throat as it pointed a hoof at the Candy Mare, a single accusing eye blazing with hatred peeking out from between her greasy grey locks.
"Great. Just great," snarled the Candy Mare, seething. "Am I to be haunted by a number of spirits until I choose to repent my wicked ways? What is it now? Another ghost from my past come to chide me for being a naughty little foal?"
"You were never a foal," coughed the corpse in a raspy voice that made the Candy Mare narrow her eyes suspiciously. "At least you were no foal of mine. We raised you like you were our own, but the truth is you were the bastard child some unicorn noble fathered on my mother. We never learned who, but then those snooty horn heads were never concerned with the results of the 'liberties' that they liked to take with the help. Before she died in child birth, she made us swear never to tell you about your true parentage, or to let anyone else know you were as much a filthy half breed as the fake 'mama' who raised you."
"That's a lie!" roared the Candy Mare, her hair curling into a nest of angry vipers around her indignant face. If she was angry before, she was incensed now. "None of that is true!"
The grey corpse tottered towards her, then carefully brushed back it's long hair to reveal Strawberry Patch's face frozen in the moment that the heart attack had taken her. Despite the death mask of horror frozen on her face, she still managed a hideous dry laugh.
"Isn't it? Doesn't it line up with everything you feared? Don't you think it's the truth I never had the chance to tell you before you killed me? Part of you suspected that we were sisters, not mother and daughter. That's the reason you were able to come back the way you did - because you were half unicorn and had just that little extra bit of magic inside you that damned you to your current existence. You know, now that I'm dead, I actually do have a little insight into who it was that was responsible for both of us being born the way we were," the death mask turned into a nasty grin full of broken teeth. "Care to make a guess? Or should I just tell you what you already suspect? His name was..."
"No... Don't you say it. Don't you dare say it!" screamed the Candy Mare, gooey black tears forming in the corners of her lollipop eyes. Her licorice tendril hair lashed out, the razor sharp whips dicing the taunting corpse to bits. So what if she resembled her late mother? The real Strawberry Patch would have never spoken to her like this!
But destruction brought no relief from the wights final words.
As the shriveled body fell into pieces, it managed to croak out, "...Lemon Drop."
All was quiet in the throne room, the last echos of the departed illusion fading slowly into the freezing silence. The Candy Mare hung her head low, her eyes closed. The moment seemed to stretch into eternity. A cold wind moaned mournfully as it swept through the chamber.
The Candy Mare opened her eyes and gazed up at a giant cloaked figure that towered above her. The horn that peeked out beneath the hood of it's long robe, which writhed like a living shadow, nearly scraped the ceiling high above. Eyes glowing white peered down upon her as the figure spread massive skeletal wings that were composed of the bones of many smaller ponies, but feathered with plumes that sparkled like diamonds strewn across black velvet, midnight dusted with stars. A broach in the shape of a crescent moon glowed like the real thing at the colossal equine's throat.
"Hello Luna," greeted the Candy Mare in a subdued tone, her face emotionless and voice hauntingly calm. "I... Don't know what I'm going to do to you anymore. I think I've reached a point beyond hatred. Beyond pain. If your intention was to push me past my breaking point, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I was already broken before you started. I'm actually a little bit scared about what I'm about to do to you. I think it might be so awful that even I'm going to end up getting nightmares over it..."
With that, the facade of calm broke and the Candy Mare exploded into a howling tornado of twisted teeth and claws that ripped into the gigantic Alicorn. There were flashes of wings and insectile limbs, shapes like sharks mixed with bear traps and big cats. Great scythes lashed at the ends of licorice ropes and hooks of candy cane strung across taffy barbed wire, stretching and ripping as swarms of tiny wriggling creatures covered in thorns slithered into the titanic pony's every pore. Black and orange striped tongues dripping with acidic slime lapped at enormous wounds as chainsaw blades composed of candy corn fangs and bone bit deep into the giant's flesh.
Yet when the dust cleared, there still stood the towering image of the cloaked princess, unscathed.
The comparatively minuscule form of an exhausted Candy Mare huffed and puffed in frustration beneath her.
"Oh joy. Another illusion," exhaled the ex-pony between breaths that she didn't technically need, exhausted though she was. "I know you're still around here somewhere princess. No matter where you hide, or how far you run, I will find you and I will destroy you!"
"You have already lost," spoke the illusion in a dreamy monotone. "You're army of slaves have been freed, your curse expunged from Equestria, and any threat you once posed long forgotten. You were defeated long ago and you don't even know it. This moment, frozen in the place where you fell, is simply the one you have been forced to repeat over and over again. Each time forgetting where it is you truly are so your fears can haunt you afresh. Each time remembering only too late that it is about to begin all over again. I would pity you, if a creature such as you were worthy of such."
All around Luna, the bodies suspended in the rafters begin to descend. Only they were no longer the half frozen and partially eaten corpses they had been before but instead they were each wearing matching purple waist-coats and tiny round spectacles that did nothing to hide the frigid blue ice chips of eyes that stared coldly down at the shivering Candy Mare. Now each and every one of them had become the same yellow unicorn, sporting immaculately coiffed mane and lips curled in perpetual sneers. As their hooves touched the ground the rocks beneath the Candy Mare's own hooves fell away and she found herself suddenly at the bottom of an all too familiar pit, the skeletal remains of dead fillies and colts all around her.
Before she could reply, the candy peeled off of her body to reveal a bloated, half rotting form beneath. The Candy Mare opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out were ruined black teeth that streamed from her maw along with a steady flow of black, sludgy drool. Everything hurt, and the stench was unbearable, made all the worse because she knew it was coming from her own rotten flesh. The tortured mare turned her crusted eyes upwards to her tormentors and could not suppress a whimper as fear shot through her over-burdened heart. An army of Lemon Drop's stared unblinkingly upon her, their gaze dissecting Pumpkin Patch as if she were a bug trapped beneath a glass.
"Welcome to your nightmare," the haughty unicorn's spoke in one voice, their mouths never moving. "I don't believe you're going to like it. But I think you will find that you will feel right at home."
The Candy Mare snapped awake, shock written across her face.
"By my beard! What in the name of harmony happened here!?" Starswirl exclaimed, aghast.
It was not difficult to find their way to the unicorn castle town or pick up Luna's trail, which had led through Castle Bullion to the throne room. The frozen devastation that they passed along the way was to be expected for the abandoned kingdom, but the sight that awaited Starswirl and the rest of the Guardians of Harmony in the throne room was another story entirely. It was awash in a sea of frozen blood and crumpled dead bodies, the ceiling crusted with gore-slick icicles that steadily dripped their putrid filth on the floor below and even in this cold the abattoir stench was unbearable. Each of the Pillars coughed and gagged as they waded their way through the hoof deep slurry of viscera and sludge, trying not to dwell too much on what it was that they were squishing beneath their steps.
At the center of that lake of putrid corpses lay side by side two relatively fresher ponies, each facing the other, splayed out like two halves of some bizarre representation of yin and yang.
One was unmistakably Princess Luna, though she was strangely garbed and there was something foreboding about about the smile that still stretched across her unconscious face. She was badly injured but still alive, barbs of candy jutting from oozing wounds. Mage Meadowbrook and Mistmane set to carefully extracting the cursed candy and treating the alicorn's wounds. While no cure had ever been discovered for the candy curse, the Meadowbrook had discovered that a tincture made from a certain star shaped fruit that grew in the Everfree Forest that could prevent the curse from setting in on those who had merely been injured by the Candy Mare or her minions. It was imperative, however, that every last piece of candy down to the smallest spec was removed and the wounds were salved thoroughly with the faintly glowing concoction. The earth pony shaman carefully poured on her precious salve and bandaged what wounds she could while Somnambula mopped Mistmane's brow, the aged unicorn concentrating all her magic on the delicate process of removing the tiny shards of candy from the rest of the wounds on the princess's body.
While the trio of mares focused on saving Luna's life, Starswirl and the other stallions kept their attention focused squarely on the Candy Mare. The bearded sorcerer rifled through the pages of his tome, searching in vain for answers to the new questions that had suddenly sprung before them. He had studied multiple different Equestria's throughout the multiverse, across both time and space, yet what the Pillars had stumbled across defied everything that he had encountered thus far. There was dark magic here, darker than he'd encountered anywhere else, but it was woven together in such a complex way that even with a lifetime of study he doubted he'd ever find a way of unraveling it. The Gordian Knot of dark power was just that dense.
Although Rockhoof's shovel was at her throat and Flash Magnus held her down with his shield, the Candy Mare remained motionless not by any intervention of their own but rather by one such aspect of the fiendish powers at play here. The candy corpse's lollipop eyes were glazed over, yet they still glared at Princess Luna with a death stare filled with hate. She stared unseeing, Starswirl's hoof waving in front of her face provoking no reaction, and the micro-twitches of her eyes told the elder unicorn that against all reason the dead creature was dreaming. In his experience the undead no more needed to sleep than they needed to breathe, yet here she was clearly seized by a horrifically deep enchanted slumber that made the spell that had been placed on the encampment earlier that day seem like a child's nap by comparison. There was no spell or cantrip known to him that was of significant enough power to accomplish such a feat, that could make even the restless dead sleep, for if he had known of one he could have put an end to the Candy Mare's terror long ago! It was as if someone had designed a spell from scratch just to put a creature that was already dead into a coma! Such a thing was not only unheard of, it was patently ridiculous!
"It's obvious that the sleeping spell that afflicted us and the rest of the encampment is similar to the spell that now effects the Candy Mare, although it is far deeper and more powerful than the enchantment that we woke from. " spoke Starswirl at last, shutting his tome with grim finality, finding no answers. "I can only assume that this was somehow accomplished by Princess Luna, yet I cannot fathom the monstrous amount of power that would be involved in afflicting such a complex hex on a creature already so cursed as the Candy Mare.
"Such a spell carries great risk," chimed in Mistmane, pausing in her work. "The subconscious is a delicate place, influenced as it is by the thoughts and feelings we carry with us. The Candy Mare is already a creature driven by hatred and a hunger for vengeance. In doing this her rage may only be concentrated, distilled into a more pure and primal form, unleashing an even more unspeakable evil upon Equestria should she ever wake from her spellbound slumber."
"I say we destroy the beasty now!" insisted Rockhoof, the blade of his shovel pressing further into the Candy Mare's throat. "Strike her down while we have the chance!"
"It's no less than what this monster would do to us, given the chance," agreed Flash, the soldier's neck muscles tight with the tension he felt this close to the fiend who had murdered so many of his friends. "This thing is a merciless killer. A remorseless cannibal. I can't imagine it being worse than it is now, but if what Mistmane says is true then we have no choice but kill it before it wakes!"
"But what if in the attempt we inadvertently break the spell that binds her?" asked Somnambula, the pegasus drawing uncomfortably close to the prone candy coated cadaver. "The combined might of Equestria has been trying to destroy her for some time now, and she has proven time and again to be quite resilient, even against the things that seem to harm her. Tear her to pieces with magic and the pieces simply rejoin together. Burn her with fire, she melts away to return shortly after as a drippy mass of melted candy and hate. Normal weapons have no lasting effect on her. Feed her to some unfortunate creature, and the Candy Curse simply takes them over and she is reborn from their innards! Whatever foul magic animates her also preserves her against harm. In attempting to destroy her we may simply be freeing her from whatever power now holds her fast."
"I am afraid I know too little about the spell that has been placed on her," admitted Starswirl, "And you are right that we do not have a full-proof way of ensuring her complete destruction. Even were we to bury her under this crumbling castle, there is no guarantee that she would not eventually awaken to take her revenge. Banishing her to another dimension would just make her someone else's problem, and in time she might return. My Limbo spell might still work, but if she should wake during transportation to Ponehenge then I fear we would have no way of preventing her escape. Truthfully, as long as she slumbers like this, the cost of using that spell is too forbidding in any event. I'd rather save it as a last resort. No, we will have to think carefully about another way to dispose of this creature. It will need to be something fulsome and lasting but also as secure as possible."
"I have an idea..."a weak voice, barely on the verge of hearing, floated up from the floor.
"Princess Luna!" gasped Meadowbrook, "You mustn't move in your condition!"
Luna tried to rise, but her hooves could not yet bear her weight, so instead she slumped against the concerned shaman with a shuddering sigh. Despite Meadowbrook trying to ease her back to the floor, Luna resisted, her eyes blazing with unnatural vitality that cowed the earth pony into submission. For the moment Luna would stand, with the healer's aid.
"First, give me your shovel," commanded the Princess of the Night, her voice brooking no denial. "And Flash, do me the favor of emptying Meadowbrook's medicine bag, won;t you?"
Starswirl couldn't hide the concern in his eyes as the dark aura of Luna's magic took hold of Rockhoof's shovel. Before he could say anything, the princess swiftly and unceremoniously brought the spade down on the Candy Mare's neck sending a spray of black blood and sugary gunk in ever direction as she chopped through her candied flesh. Undeterred by the splatter, Luna continued chopping away, crunching through the prone Candy Mare's neck-bones with the edge of the shovel until the head had been completely decapitated and removed from the rest of the body. The princess was not yet finished, however, and brought the digging tool down again and again, severing limbs from torso with a loud crunch. Then she started to break up the torso into several chunks, spraying more black blood and foul flesh in every direction, until the thick dark slurry ran down her own grinning face. The Guardian's of Harmony looked on in horror as Princess Luna at last used the excavating tool to dig into the Candy Mare's exposed chest cavity, bending back the ribs with an audible snap before she carefulled scoop out the creatures still beating heart!
Dropping the shovel, Princess Luna seized the pulsing lump of meat with her magic, and this time the dark aura that burned around Luna was unmistakable, but no one said a word as she squeezed the shriveled muscle. As she did, the dismembered pieces of the Candy Mare writhed and wriggled around on the ground in seeming pain, as if even while they were detached they were somehow still connected to one another. The Candy Mare's body parts tried to slither and drag themselves toward's Luna, but their movements were feeble at best.
Luna's sick smile at the sight would haunt the Pillar's dreams for some time to come...
Not one of the Guardians had remained unshaken by the harrowing sight of Celestia's younger sister dismembering the Candy Mare. They followed her now less because they trusted her and more because they were afraid to go against her wishes without good reason. Although the candy coated cannibal was the obvious clear and present danger to each of them, even now, secretly they felt that Luna might in truth be the more immediate menace. But they had done as she commanded and gathered up every wriggling piece of the Candy Mare and placed them into Mage Meadowbrook's medicine pack. Every piece that was except for the monsters heart, which Luna insisted on hanging from a bit of string, which she now wore dangling from around her neck.
When Meadowbrook had balked at being handed back the now dripping pack, stuffed with the Candy Mare's remains, Starswirl had elected to be the one to carry the grim parcel. Even now he could feel the slight tug as the dismembered parts of the Candy Mare's corpse tried in vain to reach her heart. The old bearded unicorn must have been quite the terrifying sight himself right now, come to hat, his wide hat and long robes that chimed merrily with the tinkling of tiny bronze bells in contrast with the squirming sack hefted on his back. The fact that it was soaked through with black blood that dribbled a grotesque trail behind him certainly wouldn't help him look any less terrifying. Likely he appeared like some bogey out of Stygian's folk tales!
If Starswirl was to be mistaken for some boggart or ghast, then surely Princess Luna would be taken for a living nightmare. She was wrapped from head to hoof in bandages that staunched the flow of her bleeding wounds, but were themselves dripping with the bile the Candy Mare had instead of blood, and yet she insisted she was fine and didn't need to wipe off the dreck. She also insisted on walking under her own power as they left Castle Bullion behind, leaving the Guardians of Harmony to trail in her wake. With the Candy Mare's shuddering heart proudly displayed against her own breast, the princess paraded through the streets of the ghost town as if she were some conquering hero. Maybe once upon a time that might have been true, but her aura had changed to one far darker than it had been previously, likely from the stress of the ordeal of fighting the Candy Mare alone. The way she carried herself now, Starswirl could easily see an illustration of her gracing Stygian's journals next to drawings of the Headless Horse and the dreaded Windigoes, her presence was that intimidating in and of itself.
But thinking of Stygian distracted Starswirl from the change in the princess and made a dark cloud settle over the elder unicorn's own heart. He was still processing the younger pony's betrayal, and it would be some time before he would even be able to think his former friends name without it dredging up unwelcome emotions. Instead he tried to focus on the task ahead. Soon they would be back at the campgrounds and there they would reunite Luna with her sister, hopefully that act alone would go some way to dispelling the darkness that clung to her and bring her back to her old self. Shortly after that they would make the announcement to the soldiers about the 'great victory' that had been achieved over the Candy Mare, leaving out the more sordid details of course. Not one of the Pillars would speak of how that victory had been won or of the precautions that they had taken on Luna's order to ensure that the horrors of that night would not be repeated, but so long as they kept Meadowbrook's pack well out of sight they would hopefully keep any awkward questions to a minimum.
They just needed to make it back to camp and they could put this entire dark chapter of Equestria's history behind them. That was why Starswirl's old heart jumped in his chest when he saw the two soldiers standing at the top of the trail. Surely these were guard's posted to welcome them back!
Except... They had not been walking long enough to have already reached the encampment. Indeed, Castle Bullion was still well within sight, squatting gargoyle-like on the horizon. What was going on?
As the ruddy moon drifted from behind the clouds to illuminate the pair of Royal Guard's, Starswirl's heart sank.
It would seem that this chapter was not yet over.
"Commander Hurricane!?"
Starswirl's shocked exclamation caused Flash Magnus eyes to go wide. Yes, he could see it now... He recognized his fellow pegasus in both of these grim sentries. Well, half of him anyways. It seemed that in all the confusion caused by the sleeping spell and the theft of their artifacts, no one had thought to properly dispose of the fallen commander's bisected body. Indeed, he must have slipped away while they were sleeping, the candy curse having seized his flesh, but instead of bringing him back whole it had brought him back in halves!
Hurricane's left and right halves looked exactly how Flash had seen them last, lifeless, eyes glazed over in death with. Yet now each half was mirrored perfectly in candy, the left by a pony made of a flakes of pink crystallized sugar and the right by a matching jagged confection in blue. They seemed to be somewhat unstable as both halves snapped and fizzled, pieces of candy shearing off in thin razor sharp sheets or exploding into dust that drifted in the air. Although they stood still, they were constantly in motion, the candy side twitching and jittering about as the dead flesh flopped nervelessly in kind. Even so, one of the split candy ghouls gripped the commander's mace while the other held a sentry's spear, which made it obvious that as misshapen as they were they still intended to do battle.
Was this the Candy Mare's last desperate attempt to escape her fate?
"Tsk! What a sore loser," spat Luna, though if she meant Commander Hurricane or the Candy Mare herself, it was hard to say for certain. Despite the severity of her injuries, it appeared that Luna was herself up for a fight, her eyes and horn blazing with dark power, "Accept your defeat!"
"Princess, you are far too wounded to face this evil!" warned Starswirl, "Mistmane, Meadowbrook, guard the princess and guide her to safety! Somnambula, fly ahead and report back on the condition of the camp! Flash and Rockhoof, we'll deal with these malformed malcontents together!"
"Looks like you really did have one last fight left in you after all, eh Commander?" commented Flash as he took Netitus from his back. "Let's make sure it's a good one, right Rockhoof?"
"I'm right behind ya laddy!" cried the barbarian champion, raising his shovel high.
"Have at thee!" cried Starswirl, glowing magic glyphs igniting in the air around him.
Of course no mere candy ghoul, even a pair that had in life been the leader of the Royal Guard, could be a match for the Guardians of Harmony. They would make short work of the unfortunate Hurricane and many other desperate candy coated corpses that rose from the frozen north to try and steal back the Candy Mare's heart.
In time the heart itself, and each of the other pieces of her corpse, would be sealed inside stone statues that the feeble efforts of the dead could not break. These would be inlaid with carefully crafted magic spells to keep the Candy Mare dormant. Thus, her existence would be erased and her memory would fade from history.
As for the Pillars, they would in time fall into shadow, their own selfishness and faithlessness spelling their doom. Likewise it would not be long before Celestia would discover Luna's secret, her presence doing little to heal her younger siblings mind, and in turn she too would draw the ire of Nightmare Moon. The pairs epic falling out would end in the younger siblings banishment, but I think you've already heard that tale.
All the ponies that were gathered in Trottingham town square wore mirrored expressions of shock.
There were some that still had the dried remains of vomit around their mouths and staining their festive holiday cloths, brown sludgy stains from regurgitated gingerbread and hot cocoa that they had spewed up at the more grotesque parts of truly horrible story. Some of the adults in the crowd held their hooves pressed against the ears of the fillies and colts nearby in vain, as it was sadly clear from their traumatized expressions that the children had heard everything. The color had drained from their little faces, and the tracks of tear led from their huge wobbly eyes. The attempt to shield them from the deranged tale the snow pony had weaved had been a fruitless effort.
"And that was the story of the Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER! Wasn't that a hoot kids!?" the Snow Mare demanded to know with a wild look in her swirling lollipop eyes. "Especially that part where the so called 'heroes' dismembered the Candy Mare and ripped out her heart! Shoving all those twitching and squirming pieces of her body into a burlap sack to carry back with them was pretty funny too, huh!? And lets not forget the part where Luna basically locked her inside a living hell inside of her own mind! What a merry tale, right!?"
"I don't get it,” answered the tiny filly from way back in the prologue. You know the one, the cute little kid bundled up under so many layers of winter apparel that it was hard to tell if there was actually a filly under there at all. ”Why does the Candy Mawe want to kill evewy pony so badly? What does she have to gain, orw to lose? And the machinations of Pwincess Luna's cwafting a sleeping spell that worwks on the undead but not using it to defeat the Candy Mawe immediately completely ewudes me!"
The Snow Mare gradually tilted her head further and further to the side until, with an audible snap, it was perpendicular with the ground and just on eye level with the curious little filly. The snow pony then then leaned towards the precocious little tot and took a massive bite out of her head! The hole that was left showed that there was indeed a brain in there, although now the entire front portion of it had been completely removed in that single chomp. Despite this, the filly still stood fully conscious and very much alive - It's amazing, but the equine body can still live without the frontal lobe, ya know?
"And that was the story of the Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER!" the Snow Mare began again, though her mouth was filled with the filly's grey matter. She chewed and swallowed without missing a beat, then continued, "But the Legends of Equestria were wrong! The Candy Mare was not defeated that day. She lived on!"
"Uhh - In the heawts and minds of us all?" burbled the little brain damaged filly, drool seeping from the corner of her mouth, her face and cloths now stained red with the steady flow of blood from her impromptu lobotomy.
"No! Inside a bunch of stupid statues scattered all over Equestria, gathering power!" howled the frosty pony, blood flecking her candy corn teeth as she cackled insanely. "That's why I've had to spend my time traveling from town to town! They thought that sacrificing treats to those ugly images of Nightmare Moon would keep the candy curse at bay, but all they did was ensure the Candy Mare would have to track them down to retrieve her body parts. In truth, they just guaranteed her eventual return! MY RETURN!"
As she said this, the monstrous mare tossed aside all pretense, shaking the frosting of snow off of her chaotic candy coated body, before the eyes of the now panicked crowd. The Candy Mare suddenly began to grow various candy limbs made of a myriad of different confections from her flesh, each and every one clearly designed to elicit the maximum amount of pain and fear from her victims before she would snuff the life out of them. As she did this, she eyed all that were gathered before her with malice and hunger in her eyes.
There were gasps and shudders from the audience, but they were all too stunned by what was happening to even think to run away, instead rooted in place by terror all they could do was shiver where they stood. Held captive as they were by, a festival of slaughter and gore ensued as the Candy Mare wordlessly launched herself into the crowed. Sweeping barbed tendrils and jagged claws through the pony's soft yielding flesh, their body parts rose into the air as dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, blood spraying in every direction as a deluge of limbs and heads fell to the ground. Those that died quickly in that first onslaught were the lucky ones, as the Candy Mare grew more creative with her kills as time went along, bored with simply slaughtering the gathered sheep.
Holiday decorations were twisted around the throats of an entire choir, silencing them as their gasping faces struggled to draw in a last breath that would never come. Stallions dressed like reindeer were hoisted into the air and ripped in half, their still twitching meat hung like sides of venison from candy cane hooks or roasted over the fires of the now burning shops. The fillies and colts were plucked from the arms of their shrieking families and smashed through the frozen surface of the shallow pool of water in the town square's fountain, their little hooves kicking and thrashing about as the tendrils of the Candy Mare's mane forcibly held their heads under water until they were still. Those that tried to flee soon found themselves dragged back into the blood soaked town square, where they were slowly sliced into pieces, their body parts stuffed inside of stockings and the boxes that formerly contained gifts that would now never be given to their friends who lay dead or dying in the snow. The Candy Mare threw these down the chimney's of the houses of ponies that had been home this whole time, flushing them out into the streets to take their part in the madness and death that wassailed through their streets!
After each and everypony nearby had been slain, in manners both elaborate and profane, the Candy Mare once more began to sing.
'♪♫Hearth's Warming Eve is filled with presents♪♫' 'Some take you by surprise' 'A story shared by a stranger' 'That makes sure your township dies'
'Sometimes you let go of the past' 'Enjoy the present while it lasts' 'And really it's not that much to ask' 'With dead friends by your side~'
'Now it's time to celebrate!'
'♪♫Hearths Warming Eve is here once again!♪♫' gasped the choir that had been strangled to death, their bodies still dangling from the garlands wrapped around their throats.
'♪♫All together, feeling great!♪♫' the Candy Mare roared with laughter as the dead started to rise and hunt down the living.
'♪♫Hearths Warming Eve is here once again!♪♫' bubbled the drowned children from the fountain.
'♪♫Can hardly wait!♪♫' the Candy Mare exulted, joyfully and triumphantly, 'We'll party 'til late! This world will share your fate!'
Then all the dead and dismembered ponies sang out as one!
'♪♫Hearth's Warming Eve is here once a—♪♫' 'Happy, happy Hearth's Warming Eve' 'Happy, happy Hearth's Warming Eve' 'Hearth's Warming Eve will end once again!'
The familiar and jolly carol now forever twisted rang out over the dark and bloodstained rubble of the once quaint little hamlet. What cheer there had been here is now dark and perverse, the severed limbs of ponies roasting over open fires and eyeballs floating in the cider, there is no comfort left that can stave off the chill of the grave. The tinsel and fairy lights hang in filthy broken tatters, the former burning while the latter spark and pop, looking like the decorations that would be put out for an older and much darker feast from primordial times held in honor of wicked gods of anguish and despair. A few survivors scamper from store to burning store, trying to run and hide from the candy ghouls that joyfully give chase. They totter through the streets, but their chances of making it through the night are slim at best, their life expectancy as fleeting as that of a single snowflake drifting serenely through the night sky that now flashes to steam over the burning rooftops of the dying town.
The little lobotomized filly, still alive though now incapable of feeling the horror of her surroundings, perhaps says it best as she says in a dull monotone, "Hearth's Warming Eve is wuined forever."
"A Horrible Hearth's Warming to all!" snarled the Candy Mare, dancing about the no longer frozen fountain that instead flows with the blood of her victims, their bodies dead still bobbing on the surface. "And to all a good Fright!"
