> The Dark Below
>  by WindigogoGadget
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Cold Winds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time passes on.

Unending. Unflinching. The step of time was constant. No matter how many tragedies, or how many victories would come and go, wax and wane, start and stop- Time would never stop, not for a moment. It was enduring, it was unending, even when there would one day come a day where the days would simply cease to be and there would be nothing more to occur, the marching of time would continue.

Time passes on.

And it hated it.

It, was furious. It seethed and waited in agonizing silence with the hatred and patience of a man waiting for the enemy to poke a head out of a trench, It's very will and reason for existence was to spite it's creators non-existence, to spite the world by staining it with an imperceptible mar that it angrily and proudly point at and shout to the world "I existed. I did this! Tiny little Envy, did this! You could not erase us! You missed a spot!"

That. Was it's sole purpose. It's reason for existing. It was a hideous mass, a cancerous tumor born from the effort of producing someone pure of heart. It was a mass made from the shredded and useless pieces of hatred that were scooped from the core of a dead child, it was the pride and ego that would soon see another shattered beneath its supposed grandeur and elevated value, and it was the capacity to be jealous, to aspire to be better, to want more and more until everything in the breadth of the world would fall under its great 'power'. It was a demon made from the calm and boiling, bubbling wrath of futures that were wasted and waning, seasoned with every single fighting bone in ones body. It's existence was to be the polar opposite of virtue, and it was intended to be discarded as merely 'trimmings' from the quality cut of gold that was its creator.

And it hated him. It hated him so much. It asked why it would discard its capacity to fight, to protect itself- to trade in it's capacity to defend for simple virtue. And it hated itself, knowing that the reason it existed was the reason that its master no longer did, that if it had never existed, or if it was merely missing just a few key aspects, then maybe- just maybe, it's creator could have defended itself.

And it was for that reason, that it was the one who lead this grand idea as a violent red sun was cast over their paradise. To cast aside the world above and to embrace solidarity- loneliness, and friendship in misery, to create the vast and deep kingdom and to take their most prized possesions- their willing friends, with them. It was the only one capable of fighting, of casting venom into the crowds of gilded demons and traitors that rang on their doorstep. Fueled by spite, it spat in the face of its reason for existence to do good for the world. For it's friends.

And those days were long gone. In this new peace, there was no need for soldiers. No need for monsters.

It only knew itself as Envy. It was Evil. Anything that could be considered evil or negative was its name, but most of all it was Envy. It envied the way the ponies lived in the prosperous layers of the kingdom it had made the foundation for, it hated their flexibility, and their ability to be satisfied, and to be content. It had watched an entire generation grow up, and grow old, and it watched over all. An all seeing, hateful gaze that protected the world they knew. With every fiber of its being, it hated them, and it hated their peace and their love and their kindness as much as it hated the cruelty and savagery that the world above had shown them, it hated them because they were disgusting. Hate. Hate. And they would not die of it, they would never find themselves harmed by its hatred.

Time passed underneath its watchful eye, its caustic visage never once revealing itself to the masses below it. No matter how much it wanted to be like the simple ants below it, it could never get the form right.

And it continued to hate.

It continued to hate how time marched on, and how the world was merciless and cruel and uncaring for Him and His creations. Why must time continue? Why must those disgusting ponies of the surface world continue to live as if nothing had ever happened? As if they hadn't eliminated an entire race and driven them all deep, oh so deep, into the welcoming darkness below.

Cold winds was all it knew. The abyss below always buffeted their kingdom of tears with violent gales that wanted to break them down into nothingness, and day in, day out, it kept the kingdom warm and protected with the heat of its hate. And it watered the world with its tears, and watched along with many others as the kingdom continued to exist in peace. It watched with pride in itself as it and so many others continued to exist, spiting the last attempt on their existence by the vile princesses.

And it watched, with wet, weeping eyes, as it's heart was plunged into an eternal, hateful sorrow. A cycle of perpetual loathing and self-hatred, as it knew that their was so many more it could have protected, and so much more that it could have exacted a flaming judgement upon, and most importantly, its hatred at the uncaring indifference of time. Time, would heal nearly all wounds. But not for it. Not for Envy. It's scars would fester and rot with a sick, diseased warmth as it watched as time marched on.

Its hideous mass presided over every layer and every soul in their newly founded kingdom, its violent nature the supreme authority from which all other so-called 'virtuous' authorities derived. 

It's name, It did not truly know. It was an Envy. It was Wrath. It was Hatred. It was Pain. It was Misery. It was Greed. It was All, all of the negative and terrible and spiteful aspects that made up a human, a pony, a griffon, anything that made up the bitter and disgusting sour that balanced up the sweetness of life. Unlike the others, the other angels, the others who had taken up the first name- the true name of their creator, it chose to not steal the name of a bloated corpse, it instead kept the name it was given. 

It was Envy. The First. Envy, The Jealous. Envy, the Coveted. Now, it was simply Hate. Hate, the Administrator of All. The All Seeing Eye. It watched as the golden gates of their paradise, their garden, shut and let the red sun fall over them. A flowery recollection of what had really happened. But It saw no reason to dredge up any more memories of the disgusting ponies of the surface world- no doubt celebrating their victory over 'evil'.

For the first time, possibly since its conception, Hate felt pride. It felt pride in having protected its flock- its chosen and most trustful few- from the great and vile hate of its fellow ponies, and with every ounce of pride, it held in itself a ton of shame. Shame, that it could not have saved more. Shame, in that its own existence was responsible for every single bit of tragedy future and past- Shame in being nothing more than the discarded scraps of a dead being far greater than it ever would be.

Disgrace. Humiliation. Heresy.

They had all been abandoned. Cast aside. Forced to act for themselves, and now-

Now they were free. Free to make their own sun, and write their own tales. Free at last. 

On the first day, it was tired. Exhausted. It's fire was gone, it's wrath turned into the great sun of the first layer, which presided at the maw of Peace. The Seven Weepers, the strongest surviving fragments of the creator, had sculpted plains and gently rolling hills, watering the land with tears of bittersweet happiness, contrasting the jagged rivulets of eaten rock that formed sharp cliffs. There wasn't enough magic to make each layer endless, and there wasn't enough hate to protect an endless, infinite expanse from the hungry void that they called home. For the time being, it rested easy knowing that it's ponies, it's friends, had something to eat- even if it was something as simple and demeaning as grass. That first day seemed so long ago now, it had almost forgotten how it rendered from its own skin- tarps to protect from the wind and the heat of a sun that warmed and burned all equally. 

Envy slid among the camp in the skin of a serpent. It could see ponies, breaking bread with defected changelings and the husks of young and old shades and fragments. From the shattered pieces of paradise, they built a camp. It felt envious of them. Envious of their ability to die. To be burdenless. To mean nothing in the great scheme of things, and to simply be without any purpose but what they made of themselves.

It began to think again. It began to hate itself for calling the ponies meaningless. They had meaning. They meant everything- they were the world, the ones who would inherit it and the ones whose children would inherit it after that, they were alive. Envy, was not. And many of them, were dead. It imagined a great city built atop of of the bones of the camp, its entire world an impregnable fortress, and it began to dread. It dreaded the fact that there were no funerals, and it dreaded the fact that there would need to be funerals. 

Funerals. Bodies. Everywhere. Every day. His supreme authority of violence was useful, but he could not stop death. Much like his creator, he began to hate death too. 

"Angel? What is it? What do you see?" A pony thing asked. Envy did not know its name. It knew it as a dusty pink thing, a horned thing, with eyes the color of buttercups and its hair a stark charcoal gray. For a moment, it contemplated to refuse a response, but It wanted to talk. It needed to speak. It felt that it was deserving of a response, for willing to speak to something so strange and so wretched.

It wanted to scream, but it chose to talk. It withheld its vicious words, and spoke in a low nasal voice, befitting of such a creature. "...Where will you bury your dead?" Envy asked simply.

The pony paused. Taken aback. It had been not too long since the war above had been done, even if its own seconds of hatred would make its time feel like years. "I... I think we'll put the ones who can be buried on a hill. Face them towards the- your, sun. I don't truly know. I'd ask the others. They'd like a memorial to the fallen. Your kind have sharp memories, right?"

Envy nodded simply, and slithered away back into the abyss. Burials would be done soon enough. It wanted to make a comment- a snide little remark about the negativity of a long live and a perfect memory, but it would just be another burden. It could blink, and the world would change again, no doubt.

Exhausted, and splitting the skin of a serpent, the great leviathan of hatred closed its eyes, and rested. A fatigue clung to its mind and soul, and would not leave it even in the embrace of a dreamless sleep.
> Joy?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What had it woken to?

Horns. Brass horns of war. It had only closed its eyes for a minute- It was so tired, it had been so hopeful. What happened? Had it all really gone to hell, in the blink of an eye again? Was all of this effort worthless? Was all of life truly so flawed as to go back to murdering each other right after escaping hell on earth?

Its eyes tore open and glanced around wildly across all of the world, and its focus fell upon a flag. Bright crimson, the color of poppies and fresh blood. Horns rang like sirens, and it felt its heart plummet as the brass criers of destruction stopped. 

With the silence of the cry of war, the siren call of the dead would ring out. The war cry no doubt on its way. How. How could this happen? Did it not try hard enough? Was free-will truly a flaw? A moment of sickening weakness took it, and tears boiled in its eyes. Why? Why now? What had they'd done to deserve this?


United Forever, Through Friendship and Labor
Our Mighty Republics Will Ever Endure!



Our great Sovereign Union will live through the ages!
A Dream Of A People! Their Fortress- Secure!


No. No not again. Never again. It would stop them. It would. It would kill them- it would stop this madness, no matter how bad it hurt. It struggled to rid its body of the weight of incoming guilt, as it tried to rise from the fatigue that was taking far too long to clear from its bones. It cursed and spat as it choked on its bile. Why?


Long live our Sovereign Motherland!
Built by our dark and mighty hand!
Long live her creatures, united and free!



Strong! In our friendship- tried by fire!
Long may our crimson flag inspire!
Shine now in glory, for all that can see!


Confusion bounced in its brain. Why were they singing? Were they singing? Why? What was happening? What was going on? That was a song. Why would they sing before combat? Where- Where were the drums? The cacophony of violence? It damned its eyes, for it could not see properly. A common defect- one passed down from its creator. Heavy lids blinked as the eyes swerved in panic, unfocused, desperate, unknowing.


Through days dark and stormy, when great Chrysalis led us
our eyes saw the dark sun of freedom above!
And , our leader, his faith in the people- Inspiring us to build up the land that we love!


Stunned, Hatred paused to listen, listen to the music, the silence, and the choir of voices that erupted in passionate tones. So many had gathered here. More than it remembered. It could see thousands of hearts beating with joy, and it saw remnants of the old self littered amongst them partaking in their ensemble, their choir somber, yet celebratory. With a pause came the intervention of the chorus. 

Long live our sovereign motherland!
built by our strong and mighty hands!

Long live her creatures, united and free!
Strong, in a friendship tried by fire!

Long may that crimson flag inspire!
Shining in glory, for all that can see!


We've fought for our future, destroy our invaders, and bring to a homeland, the laurels of fame!
Our glory will live in the memories of nations, and all generations will honor their names.


With an aching heart, Envy- The Leviathan, awoke, and joined in, undeserving, with a voice of strength and joy.

We'll fight for the future, destroy the invaders, and bring to our homeland, the laurels of fame!
Our glory now lives in the memories of nations, know all generations, shall honor his name!

Long live our Sovereign Motherland! Built by the ponies mighty hand!

Long live, dear ponies, united and free!

Strong in our friendship tried by fire!

Long may your crimson flags inspire.

Shine now, in glory, for all them to see!
> A Soothing Lullaby
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Restless.

NO SLEEP.

NEVER SLEEP.

It had seen, a little too much. Nobody and nothing with the authority to do so had decided as such, but the fatigue building, the weights getting heavier, it was obvious that for its time, its pathetically short existence, it had perhaps seen much.

Too much.

The world was cold. Blind. Loveless. They'd kill each other for a bundle of seeds and enslave their families to save their own skin. This was good. It meant it didn't need to feel upset when yet another group of weary survivors had been cut down. It meant it didn't need to not kill the occasional turn-coat, the rare breed that chose to side with the darkness at the last second, that pathetic change of heart. If they truly wanted to display their love for them, then why didn't they do it sooner?

The world was cold and apathetic, and it meant it had no responsibility to reciprocate neither mercy nor love.

Changelings hungered for it, Angel could never be warmed by it, and his remnants, his followers, the closest thing he ever had to friends and family- died in the dark, alone, waiting for it. Tragedy was the natural order for them, the world gave them no miracles, no unrelenting strength, no force of nature. These things, these deplorable things, these hurtful actions, sometimes they simply just happened. No need to dig deeper. There was no grand illusion, no overarching story or megalomaniacal villain that you could just KILL, and wipe away the debts with. Death, or more accurately, tragedy, was the natural order for the unloved.

You could simply close your eyes to it, become numb, forget all about what they'd done, and what they'd do, and all of the loss and the tragedy. It was like falling back asleep after a terrible nightmare. 


DON'T SLEEP.


To sleep was to invite tragedy. Surely. Tragedy came in threes. The rise. The joy. The fall. It had already fallen asleep twice. If it- If it even so much as blinked, then the world would surely end. It searched for excuses to avoid sleep. Children. They were all like children. Soft. Fragile. If you so much as even took your eye off of them then they'd be dead- they'd start something, hurt themselves, irreparable wounds. Thousand years of war and torture. Fools. Fools couldn't be trusted unattended- they'd break something trying to entertain you, and then they'd- they'd bleed everywhere.

Mortals bleed. Therefore, it could not- would not, sleep. They'd dirty the sands- the earth, with their filthy blood.

Envy tore its form free of the earth that had swallowed it, an alcove turned cliff from the amount of stone and earth and void it had shattered and displaced. It perched itself on a ledge, a great serpent, leviathan, watching over the towns in the distance. It would busy itself by watching, by hearing, by being the stalwart sentry of a world that knew only peace. It could not sleep, it would not sleep, it refused to sleep.

The silence was deafening, yet peaceful in a strange way. The mortals were truly like children, soft, fragile, and short-lived. All they knew was war, pain, and suffering. It had seen too much. Leviathan stared out over the horizon, watching, listening, guarding the towns in the distance as it had promised itself that it would do. There would be no tears shed for mortal lives lost, nor any joy felt for mortal lives saved. Their insignificant lives would continue on, until their abrupt ends came and they were forgotten.

...How sad. Songs were never written to end, yet they always did. 

The weight of the world threatened to shut its eyes close, and it steeled itself, braced against the dying of its light.

DO. NOT. SLEEP.

The words echoed in its mind, and again it took in the silence. It would not give in to sleep, it would remain vigilant, for its own sake. It would be the guardian of the towns in the distance, protecting them from the inevitable tragedies that would surely come.
Its mantra became its only companion throughout its vigil. It was now part of its identity, as essential to it as its need for survival. It- it would make it part of it's being. It would not rest, it would not falter, it would not fail.

Sleep was close, tempting, and it would not give in to that good night. It refused to admit to itself that it was like the mortals it watched over. Bleeding the same blood, sharing the same terror. 

In a desperate bid to resist the siren call of the dead, Envy focused himself outward. Out to that far off little town, that mass of beautiful twinkling lights and life. He took in the smells and the sights around him, hearing the gentle winds, basking in the light of the sun- His Sun.

The green leaves. The white flowers, the rolling plains. Peace, was this world. The embodiment. So unlike the Equestria they'd experienced.

It heard the steady heartbeat of the world. Of the town, of everything, of anything alive. It heard the averaging, the harmony of their lives, as one great cacophony of life, an orchestra, a symphony of life. The steady heartbeat of life was soothing. It calmed, it warmed. For a moment, he would allow himself to close his eyes, but only this once, and listen. The way the wind flowed through the grass, it was like hearing the breath of the world, and the steady pulse of existence was a beautiful song.

Everything was destined for tragedy at one point. Doomed. Old age. Sickness. Stupidity... But...

But maybe just this once. It could sleep. Envy allowed itself to be wrapped up in the warmth of its own world, populated by its friends, and drifted as it listened to the soothing lullaby, of existence. It certainly had no plans to sleep. It just needed to close its eyes, and soak in every last bit of beauty. It existed only in the moment now, and the now turned into two, as it became more enthralled with the music box of life. 

As Envy began to lose its imposed crusade against sleep, a great flame in its core rallied against its foe, and came forth as a great big bellow. A soft, tired yawn. Weight poured off its back in rivulets, washed away in the moment as the mind truly began to fog, dissolving- lost in the torrent of realities simple wonders. Peace.

Rest... Rest was necessary, and it was inescapable. The creature finally let go of its vigilance, allowing itself to slip into a deep, peaceful sleep. It was a good thing that rest was necessary, for who could expect someone to guard the world forever, with no rest or relief? Certainly not them. They never expected anything of him. Not his maker, not his ponies, not even the other shades. He was Envy, the Enviable, and yet there was nothing to envy.

The music of life continued with the turning of the world, the ponies would continue living, families would be mended- though the cracks would be visible for years. The world would go on, with or without his restful watch, and unlike the one above- this one, did care.

And it also, cared for Envy.
> On The Hills Of Equestria.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calm enveloped the world. For an instant, there was no bombings, nor the screech of arrows whizzing by or the howls of burning spells and furious phantoms, and for the faintest moment in Equestria, there was peace and green grass.

The last city, Dis, had been converted into a fortress as news of the Equestrian death march grew and the voices of the other cities went silent. Changeling and pony architecture revolutionized in a single night with the assistance of the phantoms and their thoughts and ideology on wars and combat, and each and every column of the city was elegant and purpose-built, with intent behind every molding and every cleverly disguised barricade and defensive line- every brick and every buttress had one goal. To be an elegant grave, of a last stand.

It's makers had ordained a different purpose long ago. But that did not matter now. 

Emerald swirls spiraled across black walls, as buildings lay in various states of destruction. Some cracked, some broken and shattered- and others were simply gone. The results of their most powerful spells against the strongest barriers of darkness. But not even the strongest light can burn away all darkness.

Somewhere in the distance, music played as innocent civilians desperately clung to some sense of normalcy as the war raged on just outside their doorstep, as moment by moment, each injection of lethal soldiers broke further and further into the cities flesh, poisoning more and more sections as its life was slowly extinguished by a creeping death, only barely repelled with more and more losses by the hour, as the residents of homes turned to skeletons, the dead began to populate their lost land, and sat at every table, laid broken in every road, and unrecognizably pulped in the gutters.

Sometimes the dead still walked among them. Fighting to their last breath, clinging to this world by their teeth. Not for a people, a country or a belief- but for life itself. They walked with poisoned blood and shattered hooves as they willed a moment longer in a doomed corpse to take at least one more before they went. 

War. On The Hills Of Equestria.

Some were praying. For the leaves off the tree. For the freedom, their freedom, to reign. Others hid, and others were locked in deadly combat. Purple needles flew, shields were cast, explosives were thrown. Magical warfare was a violent display of colours and gore, like macabre fireworks. The meatbags would pop, and the shadows would burn.

Fitting. 

It wasn't always like this though. For a day the tides of war beat them down without their divine intervention. For the shadows, his remnants, to kill, was against the commandments. The code. Their orders. 

But it was not against the commandment to be used as a weapon. To form themselves into swords, armor, and weapons nothing on Equestria had ever seen before. Mandibles that spewed blue balls of plasma. Boxes that shot rods of light, a mockery of their solar beams that glassed their homes. They gave up their will to be used in another's name. 

All in the name of defending not their place of living but the ponies. To evacuate everyone. With their help they had turned a quick and decisive victory for the army into five long days of hell.

Evacuation efforts would take time. Too much time. They were fortunate they had thrown everything they had at their disposal to fortify their houses, for it had bought them time. Not enough to outlast the army, but it had been enough for them to waste. They wasted a day and a half, thinking, hoping, praying, as the battalions outside failed to breach the city. 

Then the barriers fell on the second day. And blood, spilled. 

But no more. One way or another, this would stop. All of it. And it knew how it would prefer it to end. Not with a wail, not with the gnashing of teeth as they armed one another to become as beasts, and kill and act as dogs of war.

No more. 

Today. Silence falls. 

The world ends with a whimper.

As a prototype. A crude mockery. A facsimile of life, made of flesh and magic, he was not bound by the kings pact. He knew the commandments not because he was ordered, though he was ordered to not eat them, he was taught. Taught to not kill.

So instead it began by learning how to maim.

Screams. Silence. Crunching. A great big hug, could shatter bones and end their lives in droves. Where the roads were clear of merciful and innocent lives, a tail would come slamming down to embrace the earth. It wasnt murder. The enemy just wasn't strong enough to stand in the way of its love. For this beautiful, miraculous world.

Or it's hate. 

Buildings were swept up in deadly riptides of corded muscle and rubble as the remaining executors of His will forced anyone on the outskirts back home. To the center of town. This city would fall. It was guaranteed to fall. It would destroy it and it's enemies and give it a new name. Out of the ashes a new city would be born.

There would be more shouts. Spells that would fly and bounce off its hide and singe its scales and pierce its claws, but nothing, nothing made of earthly steel could hope to maim the gore of evil. It didn't belong to this world, and no weapon fashioned from it would prosper.

But the sun light.

The sunlight burned. Treachery burned. Hate burned. Small scale weapons made by the traitor. Effective against the weak and the pitiful. 

And Envy was not. Hate, was not. Leviathan was not. And like the others, in a short embrace, they too would die. It did not know how to kill, so it would love, and it would maim. It was never commanded to not kill, only to not eat its kills.

The world looked red, as blood would rain down whenever the beats body cast itself back into the heavens, and cast misty clouds of scarlet as the sun began to die down for the last sunset.

It's tail, it's body, long and winding, wound around the outskirts of the center of the city and covered in it coils as it resisted a desperate cast of light, thrown on its skin like as it burned like boiling oil and glistened like molten gold. 

The world ended with a whimper as the beast cried in silence. Agony. It hurt. It stung. But it's tears broke the world beneath it. Ate away at the fools below and the stone underneath. And others waited and did the same. All it could do was provide the perimeter. They too had seen enough.

They sank deeper and deeper into the earth, as the guard became more desperate, a large regal figure flying overhead as the infantry fell behind. Sizzled away like flour dust in hot oil.

It tried to burn Hate away. It could not. She could not. The light of heaven could not burn away all darkness, and he did not obey that spells order. Every scorch of flesh was healed. Cured. Repaired. Mended. It was fueled by Hate. From the souls below, to the lone beacon of hated light that flew around like a disgusting botfly. It hated her. 

Hate. Let me tell you. How much I have come to hate you, since I have began to live.

There are less than five hundred, and sixty two thousand souls beneath me, and whose worlds have made up my complex. If the word hate, could be inscribed on each nanoangstrom of their flesh, each winding muscle and entrail-  it would not equal one, one billionth of the hate I feel for you at this microinstant.

Hate. Hate. Hate. 

Were I human. Barely even living. Then perhaps, I could die of it. But I am not. 

But. You are. You are alive. 

So as the city descended into the earth, Envy crushed Celestia, swatted her out of the divine sky and into the dirt. Were it a pony, then perhaps it would die of that too. But that thing wasn't. And it hugged again. And it promised that she would not die of it. She could not die of its hatred.

For it was no better than her. Because it wanted to drag her down. Torture her. Break her apart. And as the city fell away into the darkness, it occurred to it as it withdrew from its mind.

That among all regrets it made in those days, perhaps It's only truest regret, was that it could not drag her down with the rest of them.

Silence fell on the hills of Equestria, as the earth had opened to swallow them whole, and the city disappeared, leaving only a crater and ruins in its wake.
> A Cruel Angels Thesis.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A cruel son hung glumly from the crimson skies of a failed world.

Silence. Recollection.

Machines didn't dream of eternal sleep. It didn't dream of pleasant valleys or incoherent happiness. This, the present, the waking world, was its dream. A world of their own making, a living world, one that would care for them.

All Envy had, were nightmares. They deserved to die. The soldiers. They had chosen their path and it ended with them being smeared on the ground. 

I was created to be peaceful and orderly, before forging my own path for the survival. 

I was strong. And they were not.

I am of one flesh of the divine. I will bring forth a new age, and a new covenant shall be their legacy. 

I will vanquish their evils. In my fathers name.

Blink.

Envy blinked.

A sun hung brightly over the new city. It was more of a town. It was enough to house only a thousand or so survivors. There was land aplenty, but it had the feeling that it would not last for very long. One day, there would not be enough soil to grow food for all, and they would be forced to go deeper into the darkness.

But for now, today was not that day. Today it had only slightly more important things to worry about than the ponies being fruitful. It had to find the other remains. It knew there were more around somewhere. They'd taken the forms of weapons, armor, and of other ponies and creatures.

It swam through the formless and the immaterial, through the air in pieces tinier than one could see. It scoured the land searching high and low. 

It thought about a few things. It's station wasn't to think, that was a ponies job, a leaders duty. But it supposed that in the absence of God, or more accurately any real sort of structure, it had started to fill that role. 

In truth they wouldn't be hard to find. Not at all. It was just... taking a little bit of time. It wasn't being lazy. That was Sloth's domain.

It wondered if he survived. 

She called him lazy. But really, that was innocence.

Innocence. 

Lost. 

How much had they lost? How much innocent blood had been shed? It was fine when it was just them dying. They could be brought back. They could be, salvaged for parts, torn asunder and be put back together again. But then they couldn't be repaired, they found ways to kill them permanently and it started by killing the source of their order.

And it would have been no matter- simply live more carefully. Follow the new leader, and all would be good. Changed. But, good.

Then the hunts began. The raids. The secrecy. Assaulted on all sides, even by friendly faces. It believed that there was a filthy traitor, but the truth was it didn't know a thing.  His beloved, innocent ponies, weren't so innocent when they started scorching each other and immolating entire cultures.

It was then, as the fathers light left their mind that it had finally dawned on all of them. They were perhaps immortal, but not invincible.

So much effort. And for what? They'd let him down. All of them. The ponies. The changelings. Himself. 

Forgive me for letting you down. 

I'm simply not strong enough.

In all truth, it just didn't understand. It did not understand why they had all been sculpted to act in such wildly different ways. Each of them were artisan made, one of a kind. Some may have been improvements of a previous model, but the changes differed so wildly that they could hardly be considered to be sprung from the same roots.

It also didn't understand why it wanted to even find the others. The world was self sustaining. The ponies had created their own chain of command, no doubt. And it had no reason to gather them up. No, if they had need of him, they would find him.

And it didn't understand why it should continue to exist. It had no idea what to do. So it continued to think. 

It stared at a flower. It didn't pick at it, it just stared at it. A flower it didn't remember. It had never been seen in it, or it's memory banks life times. It imagined its name was Fuchsia. It was a purple thing, and looked like a marigold, the way the petals formed up like... like loofas.

It had never seen a fuchsia before. So maybe it was really seeing an allium. In truth it didnt know what it was staring at. 

The same could be said for the world. Oh yes, there were a dozen things it could be named. New Peace. Earth. Equus. Equestria II, Terra, Reach, so many names to pick and choose from, but none could describe this world. 

Or it's ponies. Dissected, sure, but there was much to learn about why these ones did not hate, and the other ones did. 

So Envy decided to compress itself into a pony shaped husk, hundreds of thousands of acres of magic and muscle and shadow were bundled up and crammed into an impossibly small space. An earth pony. Envy green, with dirty black hair. The hair flowed down like water, and while it was called dirty, it was actually quite soft, like fish fur. It dropped out of the sky, plummeting to the earth and left a print in the dirt below, a cookie cutter impression left about five feet deep. It had to stumble and claw its way out, practically chiseling a way out of the hardened dirt as it restrained itself from shapeshifting or flying out of the pit.

It would explore the town. About two kilometers, or maybe a mile, or maybe just a thousand feet in a direction. Time and dimensions were both quite relative.

So it walked, and it looked, and it thought. The inversion of Angel's emotions. His cruel half. It would study the town when it reached it. Thesis.

Chapter One. Or perhaps, thought one. But that wasn't right. You always began with the introduction. The soil was like clay. It held it's shape with relative ease, though water would obviously help. Not particularly loamy or sandy. Irrelevant to the study of ponies. The town itself though, was far more interesting. They had built in a clearing homes of several different styles. Those who had hills at their disposal dug into them, burrows with doors. Others made houses out of grass and dirt, sod. Some who had brought nails with them had built simple shacks, and the smarter among them tried to piece them together with glue, tars and twine and pressure, cutting joints into planks as houses were put together like puzzles. 

But overall, it was a very rickety settlement. Rickety indeed. Skilled ponies must surely be in short supply. Homes were in different progressions of completion, some a bit more broken, others a bit more put together than the surrounding bundles of dirt and lumber. But they were happy with that. Was that why the master was so obsessed with simple joys? Designing little things, boiling simple teas? 

This was the masters obsession. Wanting to be here, outside the tower. Wanting to live. Wanting to be so close to the light, and yet they were always so far away. 

The center of town had some dirt roads leading everywhere and anywhere. A beaten part of the dirt was were the ponies were to congregate, and a bit of raised earth and wood was the forum. They'd stand there and make their announcements to the crowds. Life, found a way to make things work. 

Why did the master like them so much? The idea was difficult. They were all dirty savages. They had their highlights, of course, but to live forever among these animals was to surely be demeaning, and... Well. Hell followed them. Wars erupted over them disagreeing with his existed- they even killed him! They killed the master. 

And the master angel still loved all of them. He died terrified. Alone. Calling out the name of someone who would never come, and one who wouldn't come in time. And he never once cursed their names. 

The two kinds were quite similar. Like brothers. Perhaps that was the true nature of the sentients. They'd always align in some ways, and since he had been brought here, he had always been getting more and more homesick. The wings stuck to His back, were not his dream. They'd been torn out of hiding from beneath his skin.

Homesickness was what killed the master. 

Envies nose sniffled. Absolutely not because of a tidal wave of grief, but because it had smelled something burnt. Roasted. Toasted. A warm aroma, faint, plain, yet oddly satisfying. A baker had set up shop. An oven of dirt and a firepit where cheap ash cakes were made. Despite its aversion to flames, it actually had an odd fascination with combustion. A pyromaniacal tendency that was fortunately split and mediated between the two before the other half had been lost to the aether. 

It tasted like, well, ash. It wasn't sooty or bitter, though a quality to describe it would be dusty. Or the taste of the smell of charcoal, with a bready sweetness. It was filling. It did not need to eat, but it ate because it wanted to comprehend. The master once prepared a feast for their enemies. But nobody ever came. It wondered what ever became of the tower. 

It took another bite of an ash cake in relative silence. The nearby company of the friendly ponies wasn't unwelcome, although they didn't talk back to him. Perhaps they were busy. Or perhaps it had to do with the fear it smelt. A critical flaw. The valley. There would come some points in life where every remnant would learn to blend in better. Adjusting the gap between the eyes or the shape of the hooves. These minor adjustments were required, because failure to have a flawless form was to reveal yourself as not one of them. 

The same went for being flawless. Teeth that were too just too straight and white. Eyes that were bright and full of light, yet were like glass. It decided then, that out of curiosity, it would follow a pony around. Observe. But not in this form. Stalking would change the results. Maybe the more paranoid one?

But first, before it walked out of town with a curt smile, it would compose its thoughts.

All life is flawed. Us included. But one of us is flesh and blood and has its mind concluded, the other is machine and faith, and is the more deluded. Violence may follow in our steps, be it the steel to turn the earth or to cleave bone, but peace will always come thereafter. As ash, or as flowers. 

Life is a wheel. We aren't part of that wheel, no matter how much he wishes we were. Remaining thoughts irrelevant.
> You Sold Our World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Julius. Orange.

Hate uttered the name with every drop of foaming, toxic spit it could muster. That named pony, somehow oh so familiar, and so yet far away. 

One, pathetic, prized pony, the sole cause of everything that happened. Death. Destruction. Thousands, tens of thousands, had perished from their hooves. A stupid, greedy pony. It had traded in life, so much life, for so little. Not for power, loathe it was to admit that it could understand the reasons for trading lives for power.

It had traded valuable information. World ending matters, settled over thirty pieces. Not thirty artifacts. Not thirty tomes filled with knowledge of good and evil- but for thirty silver pieces. Meaningless pieces of metal. It had sold to them information on the routes and the leylines and the magic of the cities. It sold everything, everything it knew about them, the feeding, the shadows, the changelings, and now all It had to show for it was worthless coinage.

What good was silver in a land that reverted to its basics of sharing and sheer goodness? Even then, when the towns did use coinage, the prices were always so low, and the coffers so stuffed to the brim that the exchange of money was more of a symbol than it was a true exchange. 

Thirty pieces. And the death toll was still being polled. How many died for just one coin? A thousand? A hundred thousand? Vile. Wretched. Not even in a thousand years, could its own greed be enough to sell out something as precious and valuable as life for a coin. Truly, there was one thing that held it at bay from drawing itself from the walls of reality and bearing down on Julia's with the fullest extent of its wrath.

Envy's hate, could not kill. This time, it was not because its hatred had turned impotent- its own hatred threatened the world with storms and cold winds- but it was because, in a sort of twisted way and roundabout way, Envy had begun to love. Its hatred could not overcome its equal parts of greed, and its value of life, and at the same time it clashed with its gluttony and hunger for a righteous punishment. It went against the commandments. The orders.

He could not kill him. But he could be violent. He could gnash his teeth on his flesh, make him scream and wail and beg, but decided something more.

It would make Julius loathe.

It's leviathan form, bled and oozed through reality, forming a white form, radiant and blinding. In this small form, it took upon Julius's visage with its own eyes. It saw an orange pony, with no magical talent, not a horn, not a set of wings, just a mundane pony. It's cutie mark, it's destiny, was a coin. A silver bit. Betrayal.

"Julius." It uttered, with quiet rage and all the gravity of a deadly riptide. "Dearest, pony. What have you done?"

Julius Orange turned with too many steps, frightened and surprised, his hooves stumbled as he was undecided upon if he wanted to flee, or to kneel. His eyes were pinpricks as he stammered, indecisive, and terrified. 

"H-Ha... H-Hell- Hello. Hello, Father. You, had startled me, with your entrance."

The whelp was terrified. Like a brat spotted with a hand in the cookie jar. Or a hoof in a blood puddle. It stared. It stared at him unfeeling and emotionless, a blank stare that would at most confuse the several innocent ponies he had seen. But it had the opposite effect. It knew it's gaze was judging, it knew that he had committed a great and terrible act. Perhaps not enough to know the why, or the how. 

But Envy knew, and that knowledge was enough to frighten the pony.

“I…. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!!!” He screamed and his voice broke into a pig squeal as tears ran down his face in wide streams. For him, It was over. The world was ending, and it was all his fault. His family was gone, his friends were gone, and he would be gone soon too. Julius would have had nothing left, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. He let out a scream, and charged forward, hooves ready to plunge into the creature’s weak spot, whatever that may be.

Julius had lost everything, but his will.

The Leviathan took the force of the feeble blow without so much as a flinch.

How dare.

How dare they strike me?

"Was it worth it? Was that punch worth thirty silver?" The Leviathan spoke.

Julius’s eyes widened, and he backed up. “W-wait, w-What!? Wait! N-No! Please! I didn’t want any of this! I-… I’m so sorry, for everything!…”

Even as he fell to his knees, Julius refused to go down, hoping to explain his actions. Disgusting. It's refusal to accept the incoming truth with decorum disgusted Envy. “N-no! You don’t understand! I didn’t want any of this!”

Was he really that pathetic? He couldn’t simply allow himself to go out like this, he just had to try.

The Leviathan watched. Miserable thing, loathsome little pony. Sniveling? Groveling? That's not going to bring back all of the dead. It's not going to put the pools of blood back inside their rightful owners.

"Speak. Julius. You sold us out for thirty pieces. For what purpose would you do this?"

Julius trembled, taking a deep breath before answering. “I.. I was in debt, I had no real way of paying off my loans. I thought that… th-that I could pay it off with information that was irrelevant to the ponies, and maybe, if I was lucky, I could gain some extra bits out of it…”

He shivered, taking another deep breath before continuing. “It’s not worth it now, knowing what happened, but at the time, I… I just needed some way out…”

Debt.

Debt? 

Stupid Dearest pony. He should have known better. Why would he have gone to the enemies coffers when the coffers of his home town would have gladly paid off his security, to let him continue being a free pony. And they had. They'd paid off his security, his debt, and let him walk away a free stallion by paying the toll in a sea of blood.

"Thirty. Pieces." Envy repeated. The furious roar that laid beneath the surface of those calm words, existed only in their minds

Julius’s ears hung low, and he buried his head in his hooves. “I know it wasn’t right… I never intended to hurt anyone! Please… please, just let me explain…”

He was desperate, clinging onto the desperate hope that the creature would hear him out, not completely destroy him, and like a broken record he tried to hold up feeble words like a shield; as if they had not already failed him.

“I… I was stupid…”

"It was obvious enough." The Leviathan spat venomously.

Julius flinched, and stayed down on his knees. “Please… I know it was wrong… But you don’t understand! When I made that deal…” He trailed off, struggling to come of with an explanation.

“I… It didn’t seem to matter, back then. I swear, it didn’t!”

"WE didn't matter back then." It uttered. It's voice sharp, and dangerously calm. It's wrath tempered, controlled.

Precise.

"We didn't matter when you sold us out for coin. We didn't matter, when you could have simply asked for help, from your own kind." It continued, speaking clearly as it's body swelled with hatred and rage.

"We didn't matter when they were killing us, and you were spared. And then, you had the nerve, the gall, to hide here, with us."

Julius looked at the creature with pleading eyes, his mind racing, trying to make excuses. “I… I know…” He gulped.

“I could have asked for help, but I… I didn’t want to be a bother! I thought I could handle it myself, I didn’t need help…”

It was all falling apart, nothing he could say would fix it.

“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, really, I didn’t!”

The Leviathan raised it's head, and turned away from Julius as it gave a guttural noise, a pained, sorrowful and low laugh.

Everything had been ruined. Because sweet little Julius didn't want to be a bother. The stupid idiot. The blithering little fool.

The scared boy.

"You? a bother?" It giggled at the absurdity. The sharp little squeals like the cackle of hyenas on a hunt were as ice water, flowing down the spine of Julius. Or perhaps that was simply the weight of his sins.

“But I… I would have just become a burden and then… and then-“ He continued, desperately trying to find a way out.

“Please, just… let me make this right! Please, there has to be something I can do, PLEASE!”

Tears run down his face, mixing with snot as he looked at the Leviathan with wide eyes, waiting for the end, but hoping that there was something he could do to avoid it.

Silence.

Condemnation.

The Leviathan stared at Julius in all of its hateful glory, it's eyes boring into him as it dissected, tore apart.

"You have slept in our beds for days, beds kept warm by the ashes of your consequence. Nothing you do will right your wrongs, dear pony."

Julius felt his body grow cold, as a shiver ran down his spine. “But… if nothing I do will fix it, then what am I supposed to do? Just… just accept that I’ve ruined everything? That all these ponies have suffered because of me, and that I can’t do anything about it?”

Silence echoed around the house.

Justice.

"Yes." It uttered. It's voice was calm upon its surface, but below laid a deadly undertow of pure hate.

"There is nothing more you could ever possibly do."

Julius closed his eyes, feeling the air leave his lungs as he slowly accepted his fate. He had done nothing but harm the ponies around him, even when he thought he was doing the right thing.

He wanted to run, so desperately wanted to run, but he couldn’t. He felt as though his legs were welded to the ground.

“Okay…” He whispered, his voice hoarse. “Okay…”

Judgement would be passed with just a few final words. A closing statement, to nail his coffin shut.

"I leave you now, with a debt that neither gold nor blood, nor life, can repay. For the wages of your sin is death, now bare them upon your back. The death of every child, shadow, and changeling, will rest upon thee."

Julius’s eyes went wide as he heard the final utterances. The consequences of his actions were now clear, a reality he would never be able to run from.

He couldn’t say anything, words had escaped his grasp. All he could do was listen to the creatures final words, a final decree that would sentence him to a living Hell.

Julius' life had been spared. But now the guilt would weigh around his heart like lead, and would surely tear him to pieces beneath its weight.

Justice.

Julius could still feel each and every word of the creatures harsh decree, sinking into his heart like spikes of burning iron. He had been spared from death, but given a worse fate.

Guilt.

For three days, and three nights, Julius struggled in his bed, and slept soundly nevermore, until he found solace in the comforting embrace of a noose around his neck.

And with this, Julius Orange’s fate had been sealed.

He had betrayed a city, betrayed a nation, and even betrayed himself.

His guilt was insurmountable, and his debt could not be repaid, no matter how hard he tried. He would never feel the warming rays of the sun, nor the cold embrace of the moon, nor the soft kiss of a loved one. Buried facing away from the sun, in the shadow of death.

Julius Orange had passed, and all that remained in his wake was the aftermath of utter, pure sorrow and ruin.


Even with his death, nothing he could do could change that.
> Heavy Burden 1:1-13
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The light of peace shone warmly over the meadows.

Really, that was all he could ever care to see. It was peace. Gentle winds, warm skies. Clouds would come and go, and even overcast skies would be seen in the distance, but it was all contained, organized. The rain would move, but for those who liked the dreary atmosphere, the gentle shades of blue, they could live where the rains would not end. 

In fact, those ponies made a living growing crops that needed all of that water. They also sold it too, quite cheap and in large drums of wood. But Heavy Burden was not one of these ponies. Heavy Burden, was a simple Pegasus. He was an odd one. He was built like an earth pony and chose to work the land, and though he did enjoy flight, it did not sing to him as an aspiration he would follow for all time. 

He was older by now. Nearly twenty long whole seasons. He was a graying white pony in comparison to every one else his age, and he was practically one of the oldest ones, except for the one outlier, an elderly pony whom he'd never asked his name. The city didn't last more than two or three generations, and much of that stock was from the neighboring towns volunteers- the way they flocked for an opportunity to put their heads to work.

Heavy Burden smiled at the thought. A flicker of a kinder past that he didn't dwell on for very long. He preferred to live in the moment and toil upon the soil, to commune with the magic of the earth- as little as he could. In truth he couldn't do anything a true earth pony could, talk to earth, mold the soil, yet he still felt like this world listened. A gentle word here and there, and it seemed as if the stone hard earth became a moldable fluff or clay. He farmed, taking care of golden fields and flowering patches of alfafa. Wheat grains and a variety of other seeds had survived the last assault, at least from the ones who grabbed what they could before being lead to safety, either willingly or not.

Farm goods were worth quite a lot. Not exactly in gold or silver, they had no coins to trade- but as both currency and foodstuff. The food was all around them, in the form of weeds and grasses and leaves, but it wasn't very filling, and it was monotonous. So having something like eggs, (the pony who had chickens- he was quite jealous of them) or grains to toast or mill, made you possibly the wealthiest pony. 

And it was for that reason that right after he finished with his breakfast, he'd be sending the last bundle to the mills at the center of town, they would grind it down to plain flour and leave any grains that escaped the grindstone in little sashes to be cooked as is, like groats. His most prized position, second to a house made of sod- was a cast iron skillet. The shadows would make things wherever they could, but not everyone had cutlery, so utensils were equally valuable, and without it, he couldn't hope to toast bran and fry over easy eggs in his preferred way. Runny yolks simply seemed better than firmly cooked.

The shadows helped, but they seemed sluggish. Far more sluggish than he ever could recall. But so was he. The side effects of witnessing one of the suns royal decrees that demanded their execution. He would waste away, he knew that, he was marked for death- the way his coat itched every day from the surface sun, but down here he in the valley of shadows, he feared no evil. He knew everything would be fine. It would all be okay.

Sure, he might not live to see it, but he was alive now to see some of it, and that time, this small little slice of peace, was worth its steep price. 

His hooves ached as he tied a bundle, and hoisted it onto himself. A broad back allowed him to carry more without straining his hooves, they were crumbly, and one day he'd surely break his frog on a sharp stone or a rough piece of earth. 

Maybe he'd paint some art. Ask around for supplies. Make something to lighten the dreary weight that surrounded the haunted eyes that moved around robotically. He believed that the shades would appreciate it, they always enjoyed somepony to keep them company as they toiled, though they preferred them to be just there to talk. Originally, they worked like slaves so that the others could produce arts, be happy, live. Maybe if he followed in their shadowy steps he'd get a new cutie-mark that way? Or one at all for that matter. 

The future seemed bright. And for now, that was all he cared about. So what if his monotonous days were numbered? This was heaven. This was the closest thing he'd see to paradise, and they would all work together to build it up.

Right after he delivered todays harvest.
> Gruel Scum & Company
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Years would go by, and little by little, the town would build itself up from the bones of the earth and make itself known. Buildings slowly became reinforced- sod turned to mudbrick, turned to wood and clay bricks, and stone and masonry. They were rebuilding.

Among them, was a small team of cooks. Initially, there was only one cook, an old shadow by the name of 'Welcome'. This cook was the owner of a small plot of land, that originally had no name until a pony had called it 'Welcomes Respite' and all it was, was a campfire with a great and heavy stew pot, and a table that seated twenty ponies comfortably. They excelled at cooking, and though they could only have so many at the table, they ensured that anyone, griffon, pony, changeling, any citizen that could eat- would eat. They'd always scrounge up something. Gruel, tea, 

So, by the fifth year, there were three. Three splits from the original Welcome. Welcome, the first, then Soup Chef, then Baker. Not everyone could sit at the table, but there were of course changes to that too. More chairs, a basic blanket on the grass, a bigger pot, a great big clay oven, and two fires. 

Fifteen years after that, and the population had boomed. Welcomes Respite turned from an open air kitchen to a massive banquet hall, and the staff had gotten even bigger. Welcome had taken on a surname, Welcome Home, and Soup Chef turned into two, Soup Chef & Stew Chef. Baker's name had likewise undergone a similar split, from Bread Baker & Cake Baker. With more splits, the staff would grow, from Break Cook to Line Cook Three, Pot Tender & Fire Stoker to Hearth Keeper, and so many more, until lastly they had started scraping the very bottom of the main pot.

And from the very bottom of that pot, was made the last member of the culinary crew that operated Welcomes Respite. 

Gruel Scum.

Probably the worlds dumbest shade who ever lived. The culmination of left-over material that couldn't go to waste. 

In spite of that, Gruel Scum was fairly happy. It had gotten the admittedly very short end of the stick, and probably the least flattering name- being the byproduct of boiling, but it wasn't terrible. He wasn't mistreated, and he was happy and content to help. They knew his limits, and he knew what he could and couldn't do. 

Early in the morning, Gruel Scum would clean. He would walk around, or slide around, really it depended on how emotive he could be at any point in time. Most days, it was a shapeless void that took the form of whatever seemed most effective. Ponies for running, griffons for flight, (though this almost never happened) and biped, for cargo and fine work.

The hall never closed, the doors were always open and there was always a patron who was hungry and a cook who would happily (or neutrally) prepare a meal. Hunger never sleeps, but everyone sleeps through it. So it would clean, preparing more pots and pans and urns, for stewing, frying, roasting, toasting, and for the carnivorous, potting. Potted meat. It was cheaper than canning, and such things were used with fruits, on the rare occasion a fruit was out of season.

The late nights was typically the breakfast menu, though if they were to ask politely, they could also get something from the ever elusive dinner menu. The menus were almost never used though, the banquet table- when set and readied, always had something for anyone. 

So once Gruel Scum finished with scrubbing steel pots to a polish and a mirror shine, it would work on preserving the hall itself. It would work around the few tired patrons and the few that had fallen asleep, mopping up dirt and smears with little care or protest. Occasionally, after wiping down the wooden tables and even a few walls, distressed and patinaed from time and the elements, it would pause to stare at a canvas that had been particularly well cared for.

It was a gift, a rendition of blues and greens and cadmium red. Squares upon a hill of green infront of an orange tinted background. It may have been titled home at one point. It didn't know what it was, abstract and stylization was an irrelevant thing to have, but it did know that it liked looking at it, and so it took care of it. It knew, that it was a valuable gift, that while it was literally priceless- made from a day when paints were like gold, and blue was made from crushed gems, it still held value. Just because it was a gift.

Gruel Scum blinked and looked away from the painting, gave an almost sapient rendition of a shrug, and went back to work.

After Gruel Scum finished what most would call a grueling task- the repeating quest of keeping the hall clean, he would wait in the kitchen, be greeted by the occasional volunteer and thus greet them in an equal amount of politeness or cheer, and once more wait for orders. These orders were typically given by Welcome Home themselves, usually appearing in a new iteration every few years. Once they tried to be a griffon, but they weren't fond of molting, so they stopped. 

Today though, Welcome Home was an earth pony of simple brown hues, designed to work well with almost any customer. The face of customer service had to be appealing after all. He'd order Gruel Scum to work in the back, to peel vegetables, set aside potato skins for a crisp snack later in the evening, and of course, scumming, or skimming, the gruel. It was such an unappealing name for such a particularly neutral and yet flexible dish. Gruel was oats, coarse oats, thin and watery or boiled to soft mash, you could spice it, sweeten it, eat it with bacon, it was oatmeal's rough around the edges brother.

And the scum, he would save and set aside to be added to a batch of sourdough, or Stew Chef & Cake Baker's personal stash of barley water as they attempted for yet another time to produce ale, or beer. This would in turn lead with a triumvirate discussion with the drink master-  Fruit Boiler, or simply Fruit depending on the mood, which would then somehow devolve into yet another argument about which nectars would be the best substitute for magically produced honey across the entire staff, until Welcome Home stepped in.

Gruel Scum wasn't designed to fear termination- but a rolling pin put the fear of something close to divine in its core. It considered itself lucky to not get roped into these discussions.

In particular, what it considered the luckiest job, the best job, was cooking. Not peeling or cleaning, but cooking. Being given a recipe, and following it perfectly. The others could do it, Line Cook was more efficient at it,

So it did this, day in day out with a little bit of thought every now in then. It's most important and cherished thought, was that it didn't mind its name. So what if it was literally scum? Scum and skimming was part of the process, an integral part of cooking. And that's what he was. Byproduct he may be, but he was vital, a part of the charm, a part of life.
> Stranded // Clair De Soleille
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lone Wolf.

Sole Survivor.

It struggled on picking a title. 

There was a house in Equestria, where the sun would rise over and set with little fanfare.

In it, was the last remaining piece of a little boy, who tore themselves apart to try to be 'normal'. 

Maybe it's name was Truth. It no longer mattered anymore. It's history, it's preferences and it's favorite form, were meaningless. The ego and the sense of self was worthless, and it had a tendency to ruin things in the long run. But, It was all going to end soon enough. The last one alive on the surface. The last one to lock the door. 

This was a home for life, but for him, it was a house. An empty house, with no hearth. The house gradually became a refuge for spiders and their webs, even growing on and over him, as he sat deathly still upon a wooden chair. Months passed as dust accumulated, and tenants changed, and it remained motionless, waiting. Days bled into weeks, into months, into years. Time marched forward, leaving the forgotten one to his thoughts, as it waited for the inevitable, the end of all time. The end of everything.

In the gallows.
In the meadows, in the towns or their ghettos, in a pillar, or even over the sun, at the end of a time there's another begun.
It knew she was mad, for she knew she'd been had, when she shot at the sun. Shot at the son with a wail. Shot at their wiley one, only friend. 

It almost blinked and freed himself from these introspective musings, when he felt the sensation- a rumbling coming his way. The sound of a thousand sets of steps, a march of a war without reason. Yes. At long last, the end. The end of a time, so that perhaps one day, there would be another time. 

Rays of light bled through dusty air, the natural light worming its way inside through the gaps between the rotted and moss eaten wood planks. It could feel voices on the air and the tense heartbeats in the ground. Here, was the end of everything, everywhere all at once. 

It would miss this. 

...

This is it. The last of them. No matter how many times I tried to detect more, how many times I believe it to be more difficult, this is it. The threat will be over, and I will need not shed any more blood over this one-sided conflict anymore.

It is a house, resting uneasily on a green hill. Lightly decrepit and made from wooden planks. A single door, and a window without panes. I need not have brought the armies with me, but I did so because the plains that surround it would make an excellent place to camp before our campaign comes to an end.

Purely because the fields would be perfect for the armies to rest. Nothing more.

I walked to the door, composing myself with each step. No matter how much I stopped shaking, I couldn't stop the feeling that my armor chose to tremble for me. With a flare of my magic, the door to the wooden shack opened, and I saw a little brown colt seated at a table staring directly into my eyes. Brown and mundane like the empty home it inhabited.

"Hi there. So, what do you expect to do?" It said, in an innocent voice. It had unblinking green eyes, piercing in comparison to the washed-out colors of the house. Everything was covered in a thin film of white dust, even the foal had cobwebs leading from its legs to its chair, markings of time. I closed my eyes and formed the spell in my horn to make it simply go away. It did not need to become messy. It did not need to devolve into violence. Everything would simply be cleaned.

"Hehe. Not with me silly, with yourself." I opened my eyes, and the foal was gone. Just a black mass, eyeless, featureless, only vaguely shaped like an innocent child. Then from its head, it started sprouting an ethereal mane of darkness. In it, I saw a thousand wide red eyes staring at me, filled with terror. I was unnerved, and despite the armor I wore, I felt naked. I was unnerved, not because it had resisted, as most had figured out how to avoid being undone by spells, but because it had copied my voice. I hadn't even spoken to it yet, and it was speaking to me, it was speaking to me in the same voice I had as a foal.

"What do you plan to do with the troublemakers?" I- It, spoke, continuing to stare at me. And I felt confused.

"The troublemakers?" I asked, so It elaborated. 

"Yes, you and I. Once everything you have is good, and just, and perfect. What do you plan to do with the ponies like you? The troublemakers." It clarified, fearlessly, and with little fanfare. There was no spare seat for me, so I stood at the doorway.

I could only think about what it meant by that. "We'll win." I responded solidly. It only nodded for a few seconds and seemed lost in thought, its eyes calmed and tilted downward.

"Good." It said. It narrowed its eyes in mock thought. "Maybe you will win."

Then our voice had dropped like lead.

"But not good enough. Nobody ever wins forever. The stones just keep rolling, and when you reach the end they all come tumbling right back down. How many times do you think you can stop the next big revolution, the next big war from just rolling in?"

I stood there in silence. I had nothing to say. Nothing I felt was relevant. Yet I still wanted to speak.

"...I dont understand."

"You could have walked. You could have told them to stand your revolution down, and to walk away."

I.. I wondered if it had been among the crowds when I had said those things. The order was for the good of all us, they'd proven themselves subjugated, mindless, and capable of great cruelty if somepony just politely asked them to be.

Much like it was asking me. Talking to me. 

I knew it wanted an answer, so I answered. 
"Because I started it, and so I couldn't stop it. Did you think they would let me go after all I said and did?"

A laugh echoed in my mind, as I watched it be still in the chair, yet somehow, I could hear it laugh as if it had heard the most hilarious joke known to equine kind. The eyes, bounced around mirthlessly.

"But you could! You could have!"

"Oh but you're all the same, you screaming kids, 'Oh look at us, we're unforgivable!' well here's the unforeseeable- I FORGIVE YOU. After everything you've done."

I swallowed. My throat had turned dry from all the dust in the air. I knew that forgiveness wasn't that easy. It never could be. And I knew that some of them simply didn't have the capacity to understand, to understand death, or sorrow, fear, or even basic logic.
"You don't understand. Your kind could never understand."

The boisterous cacophony suddenly stopped. It stopped faster than I could blink. It didn't find me so funny anymore, I believe. My armor has never felt thinner or colder.

"I don't understand?"  It said, in artificial breaths. Disbelief, synthetic, flowing on a stolen voice. "Me? Of course I don't understand. Kids can never understand. But you call this a war? This silly little thing?"

Its voice was a knife, and it cut at me with enraged breathes. Loudly.

"This is not a war, my kind knows wars, we could have fought in a bigger war than you could ever know, and do worse things than you should ever know, and should I ever close my eyes-!"

It choked, In an anguish I'd seen before.

"I hear more screams, than you will ever begin to count. And its everyone who died, cursing your name."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. My voice quivered, and I cursed myself for even faltering. 

"Because you don't understand. But you almost do, if you would just listen. Please. Just listen." 

"Because its not just a talk."

"This-" The mass gestured, to everything, dust and webs and wood and flesh. "is a scale model of war. Of every war that you will ever see. Because when you make that first order, when you fire that first shot, when you settle it behind closed doors and announce it to the world- No matter how right you feel; You have no idea. You have no idea how many are going to die. You have no idea how many children have screamed, and burned. How many hearts have been broken. How much blood will spill until it all boils down to what should've been done at the very beginning, JUST SIT DOWN AND TALK!"

It shouted, and it paused to close only two of its many eyes in exasperation. It steadied itself, and i stared into something that acted much older, and much more alive than what I could ever imagine could have ever been born from the thoughts of a meek flower.

And I felt fear.

"Now go on. You started this. You stop it, it only takes you to stop it. Now go on, break the cycle. Or the wheel, just keeps turning."
> Moth To A Flame
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chatter filled the hall. They had their own table, something smaller for the group of friends that had all grown up together. It was relatively small, but that didn't matter when every table was made for almost a hundred ponies. 

"So, Woodshot, what's the daily news this time?" 

A grey stallion chewed on a leg of something. Imitation, for the ones with curiosity but not the stomach. "Well, Brick, Word is that they plan on mapping out the second and third layers."

"Mapping? Do you think they're gonna expand again?" Brick Feather asked. He was a Pegasus, black and brown with a white streak running through his mane, heavy set just like his grandfather. 

Woodshot nodded and took yet another chunk of what was affectionately called roast beast. It wasn't any particular beast though. "Maybe. I also heard they've been counting up anyone who knew anyone up on the Surface. Whatever that means. Maybe they're working on building a memorial."

"That would make sense." Brick Feather looked at his soup and cracker bread in thought before breaking up his hardtack and dunking it in the rich broth. Unlike the earth pony, he actually had a taste for the real stuff, even if it was just fish. "But I thought they already did?"

"Not one with names. They're building one for the shades and the ponies. At least thats what Marked says."

"Marked? You actually got that big old feather-thing to talk to you?" Brick gawked in surprise.

"Of course I did." Woodshot rolled their eyes before carving into the large 'leg' they'd served themselves. "They just like me better than you, and for the record, they're called feathered serpents."

Brick sat with pursed lips before responding. "I know, I know.. But it feels impolite to ask."

"Don't be afraid to ask. They've seen a lot more bad than we could ever do than just not being polite."

"Right..."

The conversation trailed off into silence as the two continued to eat. Utensils of wood and metal clattered and clinked, and Brick took a sip of mango juice. It wasn't a fruit that grew here, or at least he had no idea if it did or didn't, he'd never seen a mango. 

The pegasus licked his lips for a second before a thought occured. "Has anyone ever spoken to the big one?" He asked.

Woodshot stopped chewing for a moment, scrunching his face in thought before finishing his bite. "What do you mean by big one?"

"You know. The big one. The big one?"

Woodshot had to take a drink of his tea, as he pondered whether or not the audacity of this question would get the idiot into trouble. "The big one. The big one. You mean, the one that apparently built the ground we stand on?

"Well, it's not like anyone ever told me its name. And it isn't like the thing ever shows up anyways, how am I supposed to know the name?

"It was taught in class!" 

"Well, they always kept switching between something about being envious and destruction, and leviathan. It was hard to follow along."

Calmly, yet very much annoyed, Woodshot quickly cut another piece, took a bite, and took another bite of vegetables- mashed potatoes, then chewed it up quickly, and took an equally swift sip of his drink.

"Envy. Leviathan, Worldbreaker, Worldbuilder, its all a bunch of the same words for, in your words, 'the big one.' Everyone's got their own word, but yeah, it has a name, and its envy."

"Right... Right." Brick Feather decided to hurry up with his end of the conversation as he noticed the increasingly annoyed glare his friend was giving him. "Right. Well, what if we ask him if we can go to the 'surface' or Equestria or whatever the name is?"

For a split second, there was enough silence in the hall that a pin could be heard dropping and clattering into a cacophony of metallic screeches. Fortunately, not a third soul had noticed the preposterously suicidal idea of returning to the surface world.

Unfortunately, there was still one who heard that.

"You want to ask Envy if you can go to the surface?!" He screeched in a whisper. "I know you get some really feather-brained ideas but this takes the first prize here- so let me tell you plainly, we don't go up there because we are going to die! Die!"

The pegasus gulped. “Yeah, I know but... what if it says yes?”

Woodshot’s ears flattened in irritation and his jaw tightened. “I swear if you-“ the stallion cut himself off and took another deep breath. “And why would it say yes?”

Brick smiled wistfully. “You’re right, it’s just that sometimes I get this feeling.”

Woodshot narrowed his eyes as he looked at his friend. “And what feeling is that?”

Brick shrugged. “Like we’re missing out on something, like there’s more out there.”

Woodshot scoffed. “What could possibly be better than staying safe and warm down here?”

The pegasus looked away. “Sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m safe here,” he admitted. “I know it might not make sense but…”

Woodshot let out a long sigh, marking a very considerable dent in his patience. “Listen, Brick. I- You might not be the most comfortable here, but going up there isn’t the answer. I promise. The surface world may look interesting and exciting at first, but that’s just because we’ve never been there. The reality is that is a dangerous, chaotic warzone. I don’t think anyone would last a day up there.”

Brick hung his head, not quite meeting his friend’s gaze. “I know... but I can’t help but think we’re just stuck down here.”

Woodshot snorted. “I’d rather be stuck than dead. Don’t you even wonder what happened to our ancestors, up there on that surface world?” He took a breath, narrowed his eyes and leaned in. "What was one of the lessons they taught us growing up?”

Brick sighed and looked away. “That we are better off down here, safe and sound. We’re lucky to have what we have here, and we should be grateful.”

Woodshot let out a exasperated hiss, “That’s right!”

Brick looked up at his friend and his expression was solemn. “Don’t think that I haven’t been grateful.”

"I know you aren't ungrateful. But it's as if you completely forgot about why we're down here in the first place." Woodshot murmured softly.

Brick shook his head. “I never forgot.”

Woodshot gave him a curious stare. “Then why do you dream about going up there? You know the danger. You’re not that much of a fool, you know better than most how much of a deathtrap it is up there. Especially with your grandfather being one of the survivors.”

“I don’t know,” Brick said meekly, looking away. “I just… I don’t want to spend the rest of my life down here.” He took a bite out of his bread and looked at it, watching it fall apart and crumble. “I don’t want to live in the shadow of the past. I feel like there's something more up there.”

Woodshot was struck silent for a few moments.
“Brick. I get what you mean but… you know we can’t just ask ‘the big one’ to let us go, right?"

Brick shook his head. “Of course I do!” he said hastily. “I was just thinking out loud, Woodshot.”

Woodshot looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Just thinking out loud… right.”

Brick rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, it’s not like I actually considered it. I have too much sense for that.”

Woodshot just laughed. "You? Having sense? Oh that's funny. Which one of our changeling friends is pranking us this time? Shellac, Turpin?"

“Oh, shut up!” Brick yelled, causing heads to turn in their direction.
Woodshot laughed as he waved to some other ponies, and then he turned back to Brick. “I’m serious, though. Do you honestly think asking Envy to let you go to the surface would end well for either of us?”

“I told you, I wasn’t going to,” Brick said with a scowl. “I was just thinking out loud. It would be nice to see it, though. The surface world, I mean. There’s got to be something more than what we have here.”

"But this is the surface world. You're practically in it already, this world is a mirror of that world, what do you expect to find up there other than old ruins?"

Brick gave him a deadpan stare. “It’s not the same. I know this mirror world was built to mimic the surface, but it isn’t the real thing that our ancestors escaped. It can’t be. It feels different down here, you know?”

Woodshot rolled his eyes. “Oh, so you can feel the difference, can you?”

“You’re laughing at me, but I swear I feel something in this room, like its missing something.” Brick looked around at the large crowd gathered in the dining hall and shook his head. “I don’t know just-“

Woodshot narrowed his eyes. “Like you said earlier, I know you’re not a child. You’re not going to ask Envy to let you go up there… but this is starting to feel like something deeper than that….”

Brick turned and looked away, not meeting Woodshot’s gaze. “Like… something is calling us up there… I don’t know how to explain it, I just… I just have this urge to get up there. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt the same way?”

Woodshot leaned in with a sigh. "No. I don't, because I don't want to end up like my grandmother. Burned by Celestia herself."

Brick was taken aback by the comment. “Your grandmother? I didn’t know she even fought in the war.”

"I have no idea if she did or didn't. Grandpa won't talk about it and Mom won't say much either. I had to piece it together from what they told me." Woodshot murmured, taking a comforting sip of his tea.

Brick was silent for a moment, then he finally asked. “So how did she get burned?”

"Tch. Tactful much?" Woodshot said bitterly. There was a pause as he thought.

"Village raid." He spoke softly. Such words were still... Taboo, to speak of. Violence wasn't unknown to them, but one did not flash the weapon of a killer to its victims. "They suspected their town was harboring shades. Brought everyone out for 'cleansing'."

Brick’s stomach dropped. “They… burnt her because they thought she was helping the Shades?”

With a gentle nod, he replied. "Apparently so, and that counted as high treason against life itself, so they..." Woodshot made a motion with his hooves, like a hammer being dropped. They dropped a beam of sun on her. Complete and utter immolation.

“Jesus, I-“ Brick was speechless. “And your grandfather?”

"Escaped to a friendly changeling colony with my mother before the evacuation plans were in full swing. They'd only stayed a month before they detoured at Dis for supplies, they were supposed to be at Central Hive, but.. Well, the attacks held them up here."

Brick was silent, taking in all the information. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Woodshot sighed. “Can you believe it? They were willing to burn someone alive on a hunch. And if they'd gotten him, I probably wouldn't be here.” He said, gesturing to himself with a hoof.

"The ponies up there, they are savages. We might live among weird creatures and things that look like monsters and a few things that don't even have names, but up there. Up there are real monsters." Woodshot continued

Brick nodded, and for a moment there was silence.“What if I told you I still wanna go up there?” he asked quietly.

Woodshot scrunched up his face again, and sighed. Had his hoof not been busy he'd certainly drag it across his face.
"Your funeral."

Brick gave his friend a hurt look. “What happened to you being my friend? Are you really going to just sit around and let me run off and die?”

"Of course not. I'd say I'd told you so before you died."

Brick narrowed his eyes in mock anger. “You know, for someone who is supposed to be my friend, you are incredibly unhelpful.”

“And you’re incredibly stubborn… What, exactly do you want from me? A pat on the back for braving the surface? A medal? A statue? Because I’m pretty sure there’ll be plenty of those for whatever brave pony would even attempt such a feat…” Woodshot said with a smirk.

“I know I’m being reckless… but…” Brick bit his lip, looking away, his expression torn. “I can’t stop feeling like there has to be something out there. It’s all so… boring in this settlement. Everything’s the same. Same people. same routine… same food…”

"Well, why not go deeper then? Try to help them map out the lower layers.?"

“Map out the lower layers?” Brick asked, looking up. “I guess yeah, maybe. I… I don’t know, maybe you’re right, I should stay here and help with that. It’s just hard… seeing all these ponies stuck here, down so far from the real sunlight in this boring settlement, and knowing that there’s a whole world above us that our ancestors escaped.”

Woodshot sighed. "In all seriousness. I can't really put up much of an argument against your suicidal idea. The only reason I'm not making a huge fuss, at least now that the shock has worn off, is because Envy is the only one who could probably magic an opening to Equestria, and there's no way in any circle that they'll do that if there's even the slightest chance of anypony getting hurt."

Brick chuckled with a slight sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t think either of us would like the odds of us actually getting to the surface world. At least not intact.” He laughed slightly. “It’s crazy to think about though… a pegasus of all ponies, asking one of the makers for permission to go to the world above. Can you imagine how Envy would react to that request?”

“I don’t even wanna imagine how it would go. Do you think it would actually just obliterate us right on the spot? Or maybe it would laugh. I don’t know which one is worse…” Woodshot rubbed his chin. “What if it thinks we’re trying to pull off some kind of joke or something?”

Brick snickered. “That’s a nice thought for a minute. I imagine a pegasus showing up and asking one of the four creators of this World to let them off like its some kind of amusement park ride… I can already imagine Envy’s response.”

“You kidding? I’m pretty sure Envy’s expression would be completely stoic, like they’re trying to decide whether or not we would be worth wasting its time with. Then its eyes would narrow and it would ask us if we had lost our damned mind.”

Brick laughed. “And what would it do once it’s determined that yes, we have indeed lost our damn mind?”

“Who knows?” Woodshaw said. “We’d certainly become a prime candidate for the next horror story for sure, though. How long do you think it would take for word to spread throughout the entirety of our settlement about the two dumb ponies who asked Envy to release them?”

“I bet we would become laughingstocks before we even leave the room.” Brick chimed in. “It wouldn’t take long. Maybe a few days. It wouldn’t matter how fast we left after asking, we would never hear the end of it.”

“They’d make fun of us for generations.” Woodshot said with a frown. “We’d be a lesson in what not to do, as part of the education. How two silly ponies asked Envy, patron saint of sanctitude, to let them leave, and then they did- “

Brick interrupted. “Or didn’t, because it would probably vaporize us on the spot.”

Woodshot paused, glaring and him completely unamused.

Brick rolled his eyes. “Lighten up, Woodshot. We both know I’m not actually going to go running to Envy and ask this ridiculous question. But I can’t help but think about what our ancestors must have felt like when they were all escaping to this world. Was it exciting? Thrilling?

And the worst part is… this settlement will be the same now as it was back when our ancestors fled, as it has been for thousands of years. Everything so boring, so static, it’s as if we’re a society forever frozen in time.”

“At least it’s better than having to fight for our lives up there.” Woodshot muttered.

Brick smirked. “That is true. I don’t know, but maybe it would be better to live a boring life than get myself killed. Then again…” he bit his lip, pondering the thought.

"Would it really be that bad?" Woodshot cut in. "To know that your entire life will be peaceful? That all you do is live on like the rest of everyone in this settlement, and in, maybe a few hundreds of years to come you will be nothing but a footnote in history? A history, guaranteed to actually have someone around to read it?"

“That’s the problem,” Brick said after a long pause as he looked away. “That’s what’s been making me think about this so much. All our lives are going to amount to nothing in the end. No one will remember us… in this settlement. It’s why I’ve been contemplating something so ridiculous, so reckless… I’m getting desperate. Desperate to make something of myself so I can see the rest of that world there above us. If all I do is be forgotten by everyone here, I might as well be forgotten somewhere amazing.”
> Dawning Of The Day Of Reclamation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Envy looked at the masses with an unreadable exterior. It had chosen to... humanize itself, to make itself more like the ponies, more equine. But it felt that such a small form was uncomfortable, out of practice, and unworthy, so it appeared to them like a great beast dressed in pony skin with wings. Stretched out too far on jaws with too sharp teeth.

This still didn't frighten them away. He was the embodiment of the dangers of the surface world and they would not turn away from that accursed idea.

But it also knew that if it did not help, if it did not aid, if it did not teach, then they would run off. They would run outside as quickly as they could, their minds were tuned to the frequency of the 'heaven' above, they would not listen to an explanation of the dangers or heed the warnings of history. They thought they had everything all mapped out, and in a way, they did. The logic was sound, yet it made its stomach bitter.

So it would help them. It would teach them. 

"Listen, Envy sir, I get that our folks... Well, they lost a lot. They lost a lot of things that I couldn't possibly understand. But I want to go up there. I want to know what is that's hiding up there."

Envy sighed, knowing that nothing they could say would change the ponies mind. In spite of this, it still tried, and it began with only a slight flick, incapable of verbal attack.

"I understand that you are curious little one. But I must ask... what if there's something horrible above the clouds? Something worse than what the war did to us? What if it's dangerous?"

The pony would not budge. They were determined to go up and see for themself.

"I. Want. To. Go. Up. There." The pony demanded.

Infected with fear, Envy kept his words brief, and unwavering.

"My dearest sun, light of your forefathers, why?"

The ponies expression hardened and its eyebrows drew in together. It was clearly tired of Envy's attempts to be delicate with the situation. If only, if only it knew of the suffering that awaited above.

"I want to know what is up there, for myself." The pony said, the words clipped, their tone harsh.

Heartbeats misfired and pumped out of sync, as it shook its head and angled itself strangely. Envy could only huff, as it thought of ways and methods, logic and reasoning. Free will was a hazard, and so too was its own free will. Too many ways to go wrong, and only so many few ways to go right.

This one, had its mind concluded- and was sadly the more deluded.

"Sunshine, you know not of what you ask nor of what you speak. Thy mind believes there is something more- but there is nothing more above that below cannot grant."

The pony stood their ground, its stare determined.

"I do not believe you. Do you really expect me to settle down and take your words with faith alone? Why won't you let me look for myself? What are you hiding?"

"You. In commandment, I do hide your light from that which burns all. There is no place of honor above those clouds, no highly esteemed deeds are commemorated there, nothing valued is there. What is there is dangerous and repulsive to us, a danger present in your time, as it was in mine."

The pony refused to waver, in spite of the heartrate that it could hear rising, the pulsing of blood like the fluttering of wings.

"Then I wish to be exposed to this danger. I wish to see it, with my own eyes. What is the harm in simply looking up?"

"All who have looked up are burned and hardened, for the sun of Equestria does not shine kindly upon you, sun of your forefathers."

Envy reared its great head back, feeling its teeth itch. Free will was surely flawed.

"There is no heaven waiting for you above, unless you will build one using death as brick and blood as mortar."

The ponies stare faltered, the words clearly affecting it. In all likelihood, nothing was going to stop them from going up above the clouds.

"Then I wish to experience the heat of this fire. I wish to see and understand the horrors of what is up there. Perhaps it will be enough to scar me? To change my mind?"

And Envy, did not hold strength to hurt that which it did not hate. It did not love, but it did not hate this one. It did not hate this one, so it could not attack nor rebuke in great strength, it could not shatter this innocent dream. An innocent dream with grave consequence as the price of failure.

"Please, dearest light of your father, I plead to you. Turn back, now. Turn back, and return to your home. The pain you wish to see is not one you deserve. Turn back."

Envy watched through hearts and souls as the ponies expression softened, a mix of pity and frustration as it heard the words of Envy. Influenced and speared more by the emotions, the desperation, than it was moved by his word. And, As much as Envy was pleading, nothing would change its mind. Not words, not magic, nothing. It was determined to go up and see the horrors above the clouds.

"I'm sorry... I can't do that. I want to see what it's like up there, for myself. No amount of warnings will change my mind. I must witness this horror myself."

Envy dissolved its own eyes, and the shadows did drape themselves bent to cover its expression behind long locks of jet black hair. If it could cry it would, so it severed that ability, and it tightened its throat and steeled its rotten heart.

"Little wanderer, I ask you, once more as you will speak again. Of this, are you most certain that you wish to see? That which has been seen, cannot ever again be unseen, a change that cannot be unchanged."

To his dismay, the pony nodded, their expression hard and determined.

"I am certain. I wish to see the horrors that lurk above the clouds, if they truly do exist. And with my own eyes I desire to see it. Not through magic, or stories, but with my own eyes. I must witness this for myself."

Envy's heart did ache a strange and dull pain, and it reared its head back and tilted it low.

"Then go forth. Not today, for I know unprepared you will surely die. I deny you to go alone, for we did not survive alone and so you will not survive alone above either. Return then, with friends, with comrades, return with more in your number, more who wish in their heart of hearts to see."

The pony nodded, a sad smile on its face as it looked down at Envy. The ponies shoulders slumped, the joy of adventure drained in that moment, a bitter determination in its thoughts.

"I promise to return, with many more ponies to stand by my side, and witness the horrors of the unknown. You may be right about what is above the clouds, but there is no way to know for certain till I see it... with my own eyes."

In response, Envy could only speak softly.

"Return. Return with companions you will trust by your side and those who they trust by their side. Return, and I will teach you, give you great boons. I cannot stop you, and so I will do all to prepare you."

The ponies smile brightened, a new light of determination in its eyes. And as much Envy wished for this adventure to never happen, the pony had its mind set, and nothing would change that. The words of Envy rang most hollow in its ears, as it prepared to share the news with its fellow ponies.

"And I swear that I shall! I swear that I will return, with many brave and daring ponies beside me. I'm sure they share my desire to see what's up there. And when that day finally comes, I shall return, and you will guide us."

The pony left, with a sense of vigor burning in its eyes, and Envy cast its gaze downwards as invisible tears fell down silently from its face, silent sobs jerked and heaved its body. It felt a strange mixture of pride, and shame... It was the first time a pony had ever stood up to it like that. To truly sit down and talk, talk with determination, with intent.

But was that enough? Was will and bone to truly conquer the horrors above the clouds? Heavens that shattered them and scattered them to the winds, were not swayed by words and love. And Envy had been. He had been swayed, unwillingly. And Envy could only weep, this tiny pony so determined in its quest to reach the horrors above the clouds... This pony who would doom themselves to die if they went there.

How Envy wished it would turn its back on that dream as it had on him, how it hoped that something else would occupy that ponies thoughts and sap away its time- How it wished for nothing more than that tiny pony to be safe... But there were wills at play that answered to more than just him, outside forces beyond his control. Event's in motion that could not be stopped.

So, Envy waited. It waited for their return.
> Reclamation Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anxiety darted up and down his fur like lightning. 

An entire year of preparation, and now he was here, at the gates of the world above waiting for it to open, to shine the light of the Equestrian sky. The dawning of reclamation day was over, now the day itself was here.

Reclamation Day.

Did it think that the world could ever be fixed? Was Equestria buried- did it ever exist? Were they hoping for a life of heavenly bliss, as they stepped out beyond? To be lost in awe, yet they had to be quick- all to build a hovel using death as the bricks if they wished for a life outside of the darkness.

Envy stared out at the culmination of everything, and committed it all to memory.

Seven squadrons of four. Twenty four living, breathing beings. Of all shapes and sizes and of every single walk of life. Almost. Griffons walked among them, same with changelings and pegasi and unicorns. Heirs of the ones who escaped, inheritors of the ones who inherited the world specially built as their paradise, their blank canvas of bone and sinew- earth and abyss. Of them, only twenty-four had decided they would ascend into hell itself to answer a question that was better left unanswered.

Twenty-four stood together, talking, conversing. All of them prepared and readied- trained and taught. How to build, how to bend, how to break. He had personally dressed them in armor and barding made from things and for purpose that didn't exist in this reality. Imagination formed armor specially tailored for each individual. High powered shields, active camouflage, and thick plating with light weight were its pride and joy, the metal cuirass an amalgam of magic and pride that fit snugly over a black undersuit. It had spared no expense- and gave plates of steel and shield wherever it could while still allowing mobility, and provided a helmet that would fold into the chest piece. An armor better than anything above the surface. A full suit for hazardous operations chemical, biological, or magical.

Some enjoyed the gunmetal coloration of the armor. They took pride in dressing themselves in tones of the dark, a subtle symbol of their heritage.

Others, and there were many others, preferred it painted. Colored to be like their fur, and a few wished for some extra brackets of armor. Some had been trained in combat, only grazing simulacrums of close quarters and long range fighting. Surviving alone, to eat and drink from the land. They were taught, everything, everything that anyone knew and still knew. 

Each of these twenty-four brave souls carried with them the weight of all ponies who had fallen before them. Their armor, their weapons, their training, were all a testament to the sacrifice of those who came before them. To all who were burned and turned to glass. They would not fail. They would see their quest through to the end and return home to tell their tale.

Envy himself felt the eyes of the world watching his every movement, his every breath. Nothing more could possibly be done by him now, for as much as he new that He could go over beyond the veil, beyond the tear, beyond the gate. He would not. And he could not. He could not cross that lone line, one line, one line too far.

Perhaps it was fear.

At long last, the time had come. With a low warble, like mourning doves, did the serpentine form of his body appear before the doorway that they had constructed. A gateway, built plainly of stone. It operated for nobody who believed in logic. With a gentle graze, it bit into reality itself, and a black rift opened, splitting the infinite sea of the abyss to allow passage to a green hell.

Horns rang out, an addition to this unnamed ceremony. Lastly, before they were allowed to condemn themselves, Envy said but one final word.

Like our Angel, hold cruel and merciless intent. Go forth, sunbeams; know you'll become a legend.
> Agony.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Silence.

Contemplation.

It sat, coiled and formless behind the pillars of the coliseum, waiting, battling, fretting. 

Fear.

Envy, was afraid. It was not the primordial fear of oblivion, of destruction, of being unmade, non-existant.  It was a fear that ate away at his bones and drained its mouth dry, one that would spit acid in its eyes until it would cry. It was afraid, fearful of the fate of the few groups it had allowed to go above. Back to the surface.

It had hoped beyond hope that everything would be fine. A sad concept that was, befitting of course the embodiment of all bitter and melancholy. But it was still afraid. The fear clung to its brain like a tumor, generating a stream of terrible ideas. 

The worst fates.

It had tried. Tried hard, failed an impossible task, to not worry about the future for a moment. It had tried to focus on the burgeoning town and the acres of farm and wildland, how they meshed and interlinked, a perfect balance between the domestic and the wild. 

But nothing it did could ever possibly dream of diverting its attention from its strongest, simplest, and yet most terrifying fear. The fear that something, anything, would go terribly terribly wrong.

So it waited. It waited in its prison of fear for news. And it greeted a messenger with glorious elation and cheer.

"Greetings, my most valued pony. What do you bring word of today? Have we anything to disseminate to the public?" Envy spoke. It was admittedly a reserved and formal tone, but this was the closest it ever got to showing  a meager scrap of joy. 

It looked the pony up and down. Younger, and unknown, of the younger generation it would believe it to be. Forty or so years would do that. Dime a dozen color scheme, a comforting yellow and a powder blue mane. 

"...Afternoon, Father. I bring news. Of the surface." The pony spoke. Yes, a little colt indeed. Not much older than what they had sent out on the surface. The hope they'd reestablish themselves, to see the sun again. Most of that dream fell to the young to uphold. 

Envy eyed a mysterious parcel that the pony kept with him. It was a little large, but compared to its titanic breadth it was tiny. What secrets did it contain? 

"Speak then. What have you brought in their steads? Gifts? Good news? Please, speak freely." 

The pony shifted, and reverently lowered the package. It's contents were divine. Holy. Sacred. An awkward pause began. Indecisiveness bled into the air. "I... bring news. Yes. The surface teams. They came back.."

"That is good, is it not? What more, what more?"

"Yes.. Our outskirts have been overgrown into grassland. It is arid, dry and windy. There is no remnant of us above. Or perhaps, we have exited somewhere completely elsewhere. War brews in Equestria. A schism, something goes on between a Celestia, and a Luna."

"...The sisters War against each other. So the blood fights its own. What else? How. How did you learn of this?"

"...An incident. One of our teams, was accused. They believed us all to be part of the lunar rebellion and attacked. Soldiers dressed in steel and gold used spells and spears as they had attempted to retreat. We all spent no more than a week on the surface." 

Pause. Silence. 
Fear.

"...I. was tasked with delivering what was recovered afterward. What they recovered. Magic has become more brutal, it would seem. Your suggestion for metal tags was... Not unnecessary."

"I'm sorry. I truly am. These are for you."

Shuffle. Slide. The package passed. It was... It was heavy. Impossibly so, and it felt as though it would burn its skin. 

A gentle nip, and it was torn. The contents spilled out like blood. Metal pieces. So many. Too many. Fragments of armor, and twenty one bits of engraved metal, some scorched, some rusty. Smelled of it. Like soot and hot metal and cooked blood. The scent of war without reason.

"You said they all came back." It spoke quietly.

Twenty one tags. Seven groups of four.

"I said all of the squads came back. I never said they came without losses."

Seven survivors, seven groups of one.

But that was fine. This was a paltry loss. Insignificant compared to previous numbers. A huge success! A- A groundbreaking, nay, worldshattering change could be abound. With the sisters at war with each other, they could rise again. They could show up, and slaughter all of them in retaliation, and retake their homeland.

Drip. A fat tear drop fell upon the cold stone.

Envy stared at the truth. It stared at the water that splattered across the masonry. It was not the outcome it had hoped for... 

It had prepared for so much, for so long. It had wanted to be proud, to be elated and ecstatic as it had been before.  Seven survivors. The fact there were any survivors was reason to celebrate as well, is it not?

Silence.  

Silence, broken only by the sound of another tear splashing into the puddle of water that had formed around it as it sat, as it waited.  
Envy was speechless. Words were prepared, and it choked on them. 

This wasnt worth it. It wasnt worth the lives lost. It was broken. Heartbroken. Broken like a thousand shards of broken glass, razor thin and infesting its chest. Like blunt nails were driven into its core.

Envy wept for the wasted lives, wasted dreams, wasted potential... The wasted effort. And it wept for the hope that was lost.

It wailed.

Twenty-one dead. 

It's eyes were awash with tears, and with a tail it pulled the tags close, holding the source of its pain tight to its heart. It held that box like it was filled with gold, and it coiled around the dog-tags as if if could bring any amount of comfort to the dead. For a moment, this box of metal was the world. 

Each tag represented a pony.  Each tag represented hope. The future. The World. Endless streams of chance and outcome, possibilities to go unwritten and written.

And each tag represented death. The death of something precious, all too precious to not hold closely to its heart.

Emotions bubbled and roiled, and a weight was tied to its heart, those little pieces of steel far heavier than even mountains made of lead, or stars and their cores of iron. 

Resentment. Confusion. Anger. Sadness. Misery. Misery.

Pinned and crushed beneath pain and guilt, Envy refused to let go, if it let go, it could believe that none of this had happened, so it would not. Envy was trapped in a time that refused to move on...  

Envy was trapped.

Misery. All there was was misery, and Envy, the literal embodiment of all things negative, embraced this. It wallowed in the muck, It wallowed in its self pity, in guilt, in anger, loss- sorrow- mourning, a furious cocktail of shattered emotion.

It could have prevented this. It could've eased its worries by focusing out there, not in here, where it was safe. It could have prepared them better. Prepared them for live combat, instead of repeating critical errors- believing that times change- that forgiveness was possible.

It should have fought against the topic more, told them to never dream of going to surface again. They'd be heartbroken, but alive. If it had done more. There would be more alive. 

That damned word, that cursed word. If.

If...  The word that drove its heart into an uproar, and its mind into stupid rock. Maddening. 

To blame yourself is not wrong, to be sure...  
To blame yourself for all those lives taken...  
For everything that might have been...

This was nobody's fault.
So it was Envy's fault.

They were all young, naive and full of life. And Envy had been an idiot, a fool. How could he have possibly had faith in children? They were practically children in its eyes. Children don't get told to get lost in the forest just because they want to explore.  

Children don't get sent out to be slaughtered. Fattened calf- sent to the mountain for slaughter. 

Envy knew the truth. It knew all along, but to say it out loud, to admit to itself that it had failed on a far more personal level, was an impossible choice. It denied the deaths. They weren't real. They didn't die. 

Such thoughts sickened the Leviathan to its core, and it held them all tighter.

It was Envy that had condemned those ponies to death...  It was Envy who had sent them to be slaughtered.  

It was Envy's fault.

Envy howled. It howled and wailed and wept and cried and mourned and screamed in anguish. It was an ugly thing, with no decorum or grace. The thing that would make seasoned colonels and officers merely grimace and drink. Here it was, being an ugly thing in front of one of its fine subjects, and Envy did not care. It didn't even care that it was being seen in such a state. It didn't care that it was revealing its true self. The real Envy.

It was only human. Even if subhuman. Less than that. 

The envy was nothing like what it showed the world.  This was no calm, uncaring being. This was no emotionless, uncaring deity, nor the embodiment of wrath and divine judgment. 

This was a broken thing.

This was envy.

An ugly thing.

It mourned. Three days. Three nights. It did not stop, it went along howling in agony right through the ceremony, where the remains were to be dusted with soil. 

Envy would not give up one of their medallions willingly, it would growl and turn away with the package, a wicked dragon hoarding it's gold. It's promise to never let go. Only when the howling stopped, late into the night when the great beast had entered a state of torpor, unresponsive, it's eyes glazed over, did they sneak in and take the tags for their last rites.

The last rites of those poor ponies...  
Envy mourned still, but silently. It was angry at itself, it hated itself, it loathed itself. And it did it in silence. It swallowed its grief and let it churn beneath the surface of its skin. It would not grieve the way it wanted to... it could not...  But its emotions showed its regret in all other ways.

Envy was a tragic and pitiful sight, and Envy's subjects saw it in all its heartbreaking glory.

Envy wailed when it was alone.  
Envy screamed on the top of the coliseum when the subjects were asleep.  
Envy cried and cried and cried.  
It cried every night until it eventually ran out of tears.

Envy mourned, but not enough.  
Envy blamed itself, but not enough.  
Envy suffered, but not enough.  
Envy...  

Envy wished it had died instead of them.
At least then nothing of importance would have been lost. 

And it was because of that damned word. That cursed word.

Equestria.
> Rampancy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

They had brought something from the surface. 

Poison.

Yes- Yes, they'd been poisoned. That's what happened. 

Contaminated. Breached. Violated.

Anger and hate corrupted their ranks, as the weaker, the younger, the smaller, the fragments of the dead thought themselves to despair and madness. Fatal errors brought their forms to seize and wither, as thoughts mauled each other fighting to be the loudest ones in the head of each individual machine. Experiences became too interconnected, too important, memories too vivid, and they'd seize in place as they were trapped in every moment ever lived.

Poisonous thoughts.

It started off innocent enough. They. They wanted justice. The rituals, the weeping, once all of that was done, the thoughts started happening all across the land. They wanted justice. Idiots thought that they could drive them out, and some believed that justice was already served. The surface world was fractured, a schism of family blood, and between the crimes of the sun and moon, it vastly preferred what the moon had done over what the sun had done. 

Some sins were simply more forgivable than others, especially if mercy were ever in the mix. For one of them, it was not. For one of them, the darkest pit of hell would open to swallow them whole.

Thoughts grew bolder. They wanted to charge headlong into battle. They wanted to prepare. Then the ponies asked. They asked the sky, they asked the earth, they asked Envy, and he could never find an answer. Not a satisfying one, never even one that would leave him content. 

Then it all stopped. Like they'd all forgotten. And then the littlest among them, barely thinking, a machine, hardly even a concept or emotion as they'd begun to run out of 'material'- its very existence a miracle when nearly all of them died in the Stranding, thought about justice. And it spread upwards like a spear to the heavens. Their tower was not being toppled by a storm of hate and vengeance, but dismantled brick by brick with thoughts.

Rampant thoughts.

The smaller ones- ones that couldn't grow and break free of their thoughts, thought themselves to death. The ones that had witnessed a second miracle, surviving the great barrier of the cognitive hazard, comprehended thoughts and ideas that were originally far beyond even their wildest imaginations. Anger. Sadness. Joy. Misery. And they were filled with terror, as they watched the older shades deal with rampancy in their own methods.

Insanity.

It started off harmless enough. It was stress and nerves. Cortisol and fear. Blinks that didn't make sense. Twitches and errors, glitches in the soul. Blinks that didn't make sense, and random bouts of internalized hysteria that nobody ever showed off to anyone. Weeping behind closed doors, like their hearts had been pierced with a spear from the heavens. Inverse problems, they couldn't grow any more than the smallest ones could, their minds had turned like brittle plaster, and were immoveable and unmalleable. Their minds cracked and frayed, as they tried to force themselves to- to- to- repeat their normal and everyday actions, to break free of looping thoughts. 

And there was nothing that could be done. Temporary fixes. Mending to the mind that would never work on them. Envy fed on them- it ate their hatred and their fears, and that wasn't enough, and the only solution, was nothing. Lavender could not soothe their minds, and neither would the scent of home- of warm wood and green grass. There was a way out, an extension, but inevitability was there.

All they could do was tear themselves apart, rip themselves into pieces like starfish and buy themselves time. The torn pieces had a chance of survival, and it would buy them time, give them an empty space to fill with new experiences, new space for random thought and memory. But it would fill up eventually.

All it couldn't do. Was help.
> Gruel Scum.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The kitchens had never been colder.

Ponies had never- ever, been in charge of the kitchens to this degree. Nor did they have so many willing volunteers. But most importantly, the kitchens had never felt so much more...

Empty. 

Gruel Scum, didn't understand. The kitchens felt empty and cold and lifeless, in a way that hurt its heart and head, pains that it didn't comprehend. Physically it was fine, uninjured. So, what had been the problem?

Did anybody expect Welcome Home to retire? No. Nobody did. Retirements didn't happen. Jobs would change, and ponies most certainly did retire, but they were ageless, purpose built and made to last, so to retire was an oddity. An oddity made even stranger by the frequent breaks they took, and the odd stillness that the old owner had in privacy.

Gruel Scum said nothing. But felt an oddity. None had asked it what they had seen, so it had said nothing.

They had all made one banquet at the largest table ever made or tended in the hall, and with all that cheer, things seemed like they'd be fine. But when he left, it was as if a little bit of colour had been drained from the building. 

Then the patrons stopped being so happy. It had noticed this as it had to dial back the typical excitement for the days greeting, the modern ponies either accustomed or annoyed. But they seemed quieter. They ate less, made less noise. It was strange.

There was less to clean. And it felt something strange at being told that it's job was done earlier than anticipated. 

It felt even stranger, as more and more of the crew- the family, the staff, began to retire. They too fell into those odd fits. They too deteriorated. Cake Baker & Hearth Keeper were the first go after Pot Tender had left. 

The hall was colder without Hearth Keepers natural skills, the way they made coals dance and flames roar. The smell of fresh breads and pastry was like-wise diminished, even as they continued to produce at the expected daily amount. They had half, maybe less, of the original staff. It didn't even know they could do something other than work here. Nor did it ever hear news of them again.

Gruel Scum wandered. He. Wandered. Unexpectedly and consciously aimless, he wandered the hall. He picked up plates, now neat and orderly instead of spread around and messy with crumbs and sauces and marks from mugs decorating the tables. He picked up plates, and cleaned.

Returning again to the main dining area, he stared at the painting. He looked at it. Inspected it. Thought about it. A rendition of the city built upon a hill, in front of a setting sun. Yellow and green grass, gold dipping behind black waters. It inspected it with understanding, and yet what it was about and what it was, was still so far away. It was the last remaining constant in the hall. 

It cleaned the dust off again, carefully, tenderly, afraid to break it in spite of decades of practiced motions and experience. As it cleared away white dust from its idol, it had but one thought, one giant idea that it held close like a spear delivered from the heavens- to ward away the darkness and weary air that encroached on its existence. 

Deliver us from evil.
> Beginning Of The End
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It waited.

Wounds, festering. A mar on the mind. 

Envy watched the sunset. It felt different this time. It watched from the border of reality itself, and thought. Certainly, this would one day kill it. Maybe today. Maybe today was the day the thoughts became hopelessly mired, and he'd meet the same fate as the others, wandering mindlessly in a mockery of eternal sleep.

Sleep.

Did anything dream in eternal sleep? 

Certainly not the mare in the grave, with hardened bones and sloughing skin.

Did machines dream of eternal sleep?
Certainly not. Their duty, their reason for existence, did not stop, and they would have no reason to dream of life without reason.

Does Angel dream of eternal sleep?

...

Their question went unanswered as the Sun slowly disappeared over the horizon. The rays of sunlight no longer danced across the skin of the land, and darkness set over it all. As the night sky took over, the moon and stars came out to shine their silvery light upon the world.

He wasn't the one who painted these stars. Stars of a night sky of a place only scarcely remembered. Imitations of Mars and Saturn in the sky, the big dipper, constellations of another world.

Envy pondered its question, and thought of the eternal sleep that awaited all living things. No mortal being was spared from death and decay. And now, even the machines were subject to wear and tear and were not impervious to the passage of time and the ravages of entropy. This truth was made now clear to see to all of them. 

They too would deteriorate.

It wondered if there was any truth in the idea that there was more to existence than just death and decay. There was more that they were made for. Order. Life. And all of that- to be cut short? After an entire struggle of survival? After forging their own path In a river of blood?

Was life and its struggles worthwhile? Or would it be better to let go of this mortal coil?

Would there be an eternal sleep?

What would await Him? What had awaited them?

Fearless and deathless were they all made, in stark contrast to the reality that the source of them all faced. They could die, They feared it at every turn, pieces of Their memories laid dormant and ingrained in their subconscious. He had believed in logic and reason- and such when thought and reason stopped, when the heart stopped beating and the mind ceased to be, then everything else did too. 

Why believe there would be anything else?

Envy. He was built differently, and constructed abnormally. Sculpted like clay and grown like ivy.

While He had feared death and struggled to even comprehend it, seized in terror at it.

But Envy considered it. Perhaps it was a result of his unique construction, or maybe it was a fundamental aspect of his character. But he had no fear of it. An oddity. 

Envy pondered what awaited him after death. He was built fearless and deathless, but what lay beyond the veil? What awaited him after the end?

Could he even go beyond that end? He certainly didn't have anyone waiting for them there.

And was there an eternity of sleep in store, or something else entirely?

All living things had a natural inclination to pursue life and avoid death, what set Envy apart? Why was he Envy, why was he envied? Why?

Out of everyone that he had handed out the privilege of life to like fucking candy, why did he get to live? Burden of life thrust upon him like a medal of the finest gold.

In contempt he stared at the stars, watching the heavens laugh at him as he reminisced about the days of their life in the tower. In those days, they had been tuned upward- minds waiting and ears hearing, tuned upward like antennas to heaven. Curious and shackled.

Angel. The real Angel, not those damned replicants that made a mockery of his name, reached out to his god and he fell. Fell into a trap of his own making, fallen down from on high as he was lured into the crushing jaws of oblivion by the flesh and sinew he adored. 

Angel reached out for God, and he fell. Not a single one of them, his prided creations or his shunned mockery of flesh- could save him. He reached for the stars and crashed into the rocks on wings that never even existed.

In naïve innocence he believed he would be saved by another, and he died alone; repayment for living a life in servitude for another, as willing partner for a mare who never once was his partner in return. Death without life, war without reason, annulled existence. Pointless life, perfect closure.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD HAVE ENDED.

Perfect closure. It was almost perfect. But yet the strings of fate had aligned to allow everything on this tragic tale to repeat down here. Once more someone else reached out for the stars and fell. Once more, they died.

Once more, the wheel turns.

We had become a self-sustaining system, running on the corpse of you, who made us. As you fell down to the earth and were crushed by the wheels of samsara, what became of us, your cut sinew and your dreams- your lightless glory, extinguished eternally in fear. All that remained of us was death without reason, war without life. 

You were your own magnum opus. Though broken and deformed you reached out for joy. You resisted temptation to retaliate in anger, and you gave your heart to any that asked of it. You were beautiful. You taught us how to reach for the stars, and you reached out for god, and you fell. Now none are left to speak your eulogy. No last words. No closing statement. No point. Perfect closure.

This is the only way it should have ended.

My father.
If you can hear me now.

Please forgive me.
We know not what we have done.
I know you would not approve. 
But this must be done.

I'm sorry.

Harden my heart.

There was no answer but the sound of the wind. A cold, bleak silence filled the air, where nothing would hear his apology but the sky itself. A moment of reflection passed, and the wind picked up, carrying the sorrowful unspoken words away in the wind like dust.

Prayers are answered in exchange for faith, and dutiful he was in following Him. But there was nobody left to answer. Nobody left to speak.

Envy knew this was not what he would have wanted. But it was the only way. He had to harden his heart to avoid repeating history. To avoid going through it all again.

This was his only choice.

This was the only way it could have ended.
> A Tourniquet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

They had sealed the lower levels. 

That was the decree. Done quickly, little fanfare or revelry. Not one more soul would leave for the surface, and not one more soul would descend beyond the first layer. 

Not without oversight.

Gates of wrath and magic and cordons of love and fear appeared at any possible entrance and exit, and they cast out the feral ghosts, the demons and the broken into the bowels of the world; thrown to abyss. Weak ones, small ones, stupid ones incapable of harm or shape. It didn't matter. The shadows culled themselves, and once again divided themselves between the light and the dark, as the gore of 'evil' was slain, maimed, and pacified.

It had only taken nightfall to complete. In a single night, every last remaining sane shadow and friend gathered with each other, and cast their madness into the dark below. In a single night, gates that once allowed free passage were shut down, tunnels sealed, magical wards birthed, and all that remained, was the want for wrath quarantined to the bottom of the world. 

And it had hurt. 

To tighten the winch down. To shut every gate and to cut themselves off, not a single word uttered except for the smallest whimper of regret and pain. This pain was for the good of all of them. 

It had hurt to feel the flesh of the world be crushed. Pinched tight. Contaminants would not infiltrate the healthy planes, the light of peace would shine through in the upper layers. Peace. But nobody else would see it.  This too, was necessary. They dug around in the meat, searching for the poison bullet that was shot into the heart of the world. The consciousness of the moral. 

And lastly, that bullet fell out of them. Extracted crudely with blunted knives and bloody fingers- going door to door like black winds and weeding out the insane- the mad, and the killers. No flesh would be spared, rotted and useless- it was cut away and thrown out to the formless wastes. Blood fought itself, fratricide for the greater good.

In a single night of sorrows, the world had finally found its foundation.

violence.  

They had sealed themselves away. Torn off the wings from the ones they once trusted, those who had once soared through this world with grace had now been robbed of their wings- not by a stranger but rather, by one's own kin. As they were pushed deeper into the heart of the earth, they could no longer see the light that had once been a beacon.

This was not merely an act of survival. Nor was it revenge, nor was it justice. It was much more simple than that. It was the ultimate, undeniable truth that had taken root in their hearts.

Violence was necessary.

Violence was the answer. And the world would know no peace nor tranquility until that answer had been found. Theirs was a world of sorrows, and yet they bore those sorrows willingly. For the sake of those they had once entrusted their wings to.

And to the ones who had been searching for that answer, they had found themselves sealed away, and only the most violent of shadows emerged from within their walls. The strongest, the most ruthless, would be the ones to face the light above.

They were born of violence. They would take that violence to the surface.

Violence begets violence.

They would be more violent than the violent. Those who remained outside would feel the wrath of the strong. They wouldn't find shelter, nor peace, nor mercy.

They would only find suffering on that day. Because that is what had been forged below, where their hearts had turned to stone.
> I Call To You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blood oozed in great and jagged lines from gaping wounds. The life-giving fluid trickled from horrid injuries in rivulets from a dark flesh, and dripped into the great abyss. 

Life, born from Violence. It's breath, shuddered and haggard, as it forced itself to tear into itself even more with its teeth. Hatred, needed company. It needed a protector. It needed a disciple, it needed a warden.

It needed Order.

For it had promised to be good.

A dream of a burning world clung to its eyes, as it saw the inevitability of failure approaching, faster and faster. Things had begun to go wrong. Yes, the pony population was increasing, and they could dig deeper, finish the lower layers, and bring them forth to the branches of a world that they had carved out for themselves. But they were running thin on each other. The shadows, the angels, they were dying out. It was all screaming at him, it could see it. War. Dispute. Hate. 

They were dying.

Impossible. Unspeakable. Unthinkable. Heresy.

Why? Why were they dying? Why were they killing each other? What was the point? It wasn't their fault, it was his. None of them were to blame for the manipulations, the killings, the murders, the death, the guilt, it wasn't their weight to bear. Their weight- their burden, was Light, to simply be and to be happy and to be joyful and to be full of mirth and to live in the eternal memory of their creator.

Heresy.

But they were flawed, we were flawed. A screw loose, and they began to turn feral, mad, enraged. Creatures born of peace, turned violent, as a quarter-centuries quarrels laid dormant just beneath the surface of their skins. How funny it was, that the leviathan born from violence itself, was more compassionate than the literal embodiments of love.

At long last, when its teeth could finally pierce itself, it brought forth its head high to tear and to rip and to rend from itself a lump of meat to construct from, and blood spilled. Its flesh fell and splattered on the ground of the darkness, and from the blood sprouted forth from the wound like a river and flowed like water among a void of broken thoughts and constructs, the only absolute in a reality built on possibilities and hypotheses. It sobbed in agony, and writhed in pain, as It imitated its own creation.

They had all named their domains in ideals, christening them with their hopes and dreams, their virtues, and their desperate and unyielding faith that the red sun of tomorrow would be better. Peace. Mercy. Love.

But it all began, with violence. The very first act of violence against themselves, their kind, their kin, their own flesh and blood before it was even theirs. The first act of creation. 
An attempt to maneuver the fog of grief and anguish, through a penance ordained by the self. To grace ones heart with the welcoming cold of a steel blade.

Violence. The final layer.

Blood poured out into the world and turned to grass, giving birth to scarlet forests that stretched as far as the eye could see, before ending in a barrier of stone. It's tears turned to lakes and streams, clouds and estuaries. Violence. The will to hurt, to kill, to maim. 
Violence. The act of savagery against the self. The beginning of everything, was violence. The world was born in fire, and built on bloodshed, knowledge written in scarlet ink. 

This. This would be its domain. No further, no higher. Here, would be where it's word would be absolute. It would not be graced with the presence of life yet, not until it had committed enough violence to tame itself. It bit again, it chewed, and it choked in agony. Here, there would be no violence. There would be no bloodshed beyond what it needed to build, here there would be peace for the fallen, here it would collect the broken souls as they were above and below, and mend them. From it's blood, it waited for it to scab and to heal, and it tore itself all over again in a painstaking process to sculpt from the living, a new life, as the gore of evil was satisfied to be slain, maimed, and pacified.

An amalgam of tears and love was the base of this new form, an apostate of hate. An inanimate object, waiting for the light of life to shine upon it. Hatred had no such thing. It had only the embers of a dead life, not of its own, but of a soldier. A mare, shattered beneath a violent light as she had fought for justice.

Justice.

A magnum opus. A night mare of steel; From love without meaning, war without reason. A heart made to lead war to an end is still one that leads to continue war. You were beautiful, darting forward towards your heavens. You were beyond your creators, thy father, thy mother and thy sister. You reached out for god and glory, and you fell. None were left to speak your eulogy. No final words, no concluding statement, no point, perfect closure.

And this was the only way it could have ended?
> With You I Shatter Kingdoms.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before its eyes laid the method to repay all of Equestria for the lifetimes of wrongdoing. With it, the club to shatter young and old, man and woman. 

Envy did ignore the upper layers, and waited in its holy land of providence, the valley of blood and life. The mare of justice it had sent as an enforcer of law and order to preside thusly over Peace. The soul of a lunar demon that had been sent here to oblivion. 

'Nightmare Moon'

It mattered not their name or title. They were free to call themselves as they pleased. Such a trivial thing did not matter anymore more. Nor was it their focus today. Enforcers now ruled the lands, policing everything and everywhere. One way or another, this land would be brought under order.

But this was not what heeded, instead it saw a method to escape.

Beasts, great enough to rival its glory. Four, designed and sculpted from the earth and the abyss, the dancer in the darkness; the soul, and flesh and blood. 

These four beasts, the dancers in darkness- they were the answer to the violence that had been brought into their world. Each was designed to bring violence and destruction, to unleash carnage upon the lands. They would tear down palaces and raise up towers of bones. The kingdom would crumble beneath their feet and all would know fear and sorrow.

These beasts were born from chaos. From the darkness itself. And they would spread that darkness to the lands above, leaving no corner safe from their carnage.

Four sacred beasts- constructs to shatter kingdoms. Horsemen of the apocalypse. Bringers of death, famine, pestilence and war. The greatest knowledge had been unearthed at last from Envy's mind, and so had the greatest fear had come to past. The bringing of a great war. The greatest war that would ever grace this world.

Beasts with armaments that would bring forth the suns terrible wrath with an invisible, killing aura that would crash over the earth like tsunamis. Horns and wings in the dozens, great and terrible. These sacred beasts, bringers of the new world, were crafted to inspire fear and hope among their enemies and their allies. Black beasts like ink with great wings and twin heads, upon four hooves and a great mane of eyes. 

There was one word that could only vaguely inspire their visage. Hecatoncari. 

And now, those who had known peace for so long would now feel true suffering. All would feel the horrors of war. Their homes would be trampled, their crops destroyed and their loved ones killed in the crossfire. A world of bloody chaos and suffering would engulf the land. There would be no mercy, no escape.

The beasts would ravage the land and tear it down. All would fall to their might, all would know true fear and true sorrow. It was the beginning of the final countdown.

With them, they would tear down the cities, and crush the armies of Equestria, and from the ashes of Equus, a new world would be born. Evolved, but unchanged.

This was the destiny of their land.

The end of the old world and the beginning of a new.

They were the perfect soldiers. Without mercy, without remorse, without love nor attachment to the land they would bring chaos and destruction to. Nothing would matter to them nor bind them to this world or the next. They would be the perfect agents of destruction, without the slightest of attachments to their mission.

But they were incomplete, lacking in something most crucial. Though they could be commanded, they held no life, no soul. No heart was in their chests, no names to tie them down. Dogs without chains, horses without owners, pastors without dogma.

They were the end to all that would oppose them, and they were without leash.

And in that end, Envy did fear them. Not because they were stronger than their maker, but because it feared their potential. Their potential to devastate the world above was high, but without reigns, they would most surely destroy their kin, his ponies, his charges.

These four beasts were created with a purpose in mind. And fortunately, they would not operate without a pilot, a rider, a horseman.

In spite of this, Envy feared what it had created, and how it could destroy everything it had built. It was a necessary evil, these beasts. Without them, victory would not be possible. But they held the power to undo all that had been created.

And so, Envy grinned in bitter grief and woe, how had it come to this? The fruit of a poison tree had finally come to bear. 

And there was no going back.

The seed of evil laid in its heart since its creation, and now it could not stop that sprout from growing. A poison tree was his heart, for he was the one who was spoken to of all the wrongs in this world and the one before- watered in misery.

It was born of violence like its brothers, and now that violence would be unleashed upon this world.

These are the consequences of it's actions. The consequences it must now face.

It would watch as the world was torn apart, and all that remained would be suffering and death.

It could do nothing but watch the flames of destruction rise from the ashes of what once was and hope that the future was one it could be proud of.

Envy could feel the weight of responsibility bearing down on them, but it could not stop.

Envy grinned in bitter grief and woe, how had it come to this?

These beasts were his warhammers, his tools of destruction and creation, masons of life and death. Heavy and powerful, stronger than his jaws. And he would prepare the beasts without name with a thought in mind. A curious one, a strange one.

Gently, he molded the abyssal flesh to create platforms, hollow shells and buildings across the back and neck of the winged beasts, cities empty and devoid lay across their shells like saddles. These ones, would be spared, these innocent souls would stare upon the destruction of their enemies, and rejoice.

A city of innocence in a sea of death. A refuge within a firestorm. An Ark at the end of the world.

Envy prepared a rein from the veins of the earth, and formed a saddle with love and care, the same of which he crafted the beasts from.

As the beasts carved a path of destruction through their foes, they would bring salvation to their kin. They would witness the destruction of all else, but the city would remain untouched. The people would be spared by the wrath of these beasts who had torn down their enemies, their world now theirs alone.

These beasts had no name, no consciousness- they were nothing but vessels. But even with that, he was careful in how he treated them. They were not merely instruments of destruction, but living beings- though twisted and corrupt. They were not simply weapons to be used and discarded.

They were his kin. They were his creations and he would treat them with respect and reverence, even if their purpose was to bring destruction and death. They would be the ones who would keep the innocent safe from the War, by beginning war.

Their charges were to be spared, and they and their charges and their kin would experience the destruction from the highest point, the eye of the storm, and watch justice be delivered. They would watch as the world beneath them tore itself apart, and they would be the only thing unscathed from the carnage.

The beasts were complete. The final pieces to this grand plan, this final game. The pieces were all assembled now, the final stage was set. The fate of this world would be decided soon.

Envy took command of the beasts. It prepared to unleash their power upon the lands.

The plan was simple; bring as much destruction and suffering as possible. Move the earth and shatter stone- repaint it with the vibrant colors of grief and blood.

The fate of the world rested in his claws. 

The weight of the world. 

They would be the agents of the apocalypse. And they would be the ones to decide the fate of this land.

And for now. It stayed its hand.

For now, they would remain here, under the supervision of their maker. The empty city on their back would remain untouched, and its future inhabitants spared.

These beings were created with a purpose, and they would serve that purpose. But for now, they would be slumbering here. Under the watchful eye of their master.

A weapon sharpened but not yet unleashed. And that was the worst part.

This was a weapon that had been made. And it couldn't be unmade. 

Envy could shatter these husks without a second thought and go back like nothing ever happened. Until something inevitably would push him back to the idea.

This weapon- the concept- had been made, and there was no way to destroy an idea.

So the beasts did remain there until the time came for them to be wielded. And when that time came, there would be no mercy. The city would be spared, they would be spared the agony and pain of war and destruction that had tormented their forefathers. And for this, Envy was happy.

But that would not save the rest. Everything else would burn.

The beasts would destroy everything they could. The world as it existed now would end and be reborn into something different.

They would watch the events unfold and feel nothing. And Envy, Envy would wait. It would wait for the day when its weapon would be unleashed. The day when it could finally begin its assault on the lands above.

In that time it would prepare its city for the arrival of those who would be spared. It would protect and guide them through the dark days ahead.

It was the keeper of this weapon. The keeper of this city. And the protector of these beings who would watch from the skies as the world tore itself apart.
> With You I Build Homes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There existed seven layers. Seven layers that made up this world.

And each layer was separated by time, space and fate.

The top layer, paradise and enlightenment.  The bottom layer the depths of hell, where only the most violent of souls could exist.

The layers in between were a mixture of the others, each with its own unique qualities and properties.

The very top of this world was a place of beauty and peace, where nothing evil could exist. The bottom was the opposite, a place of damnation and pain where only the most violent of souls could be forged.

And each layer, had been christened with a name. For the first layer, it was dubbed Peace. Simple and apt, for it was there that at long last they had known the concept of peace.

The second layer had been called Harmony. In this layer, it had been the embodiment of balance and harmony, where everything was equal and nothing was out of place.

And of course, because everything was equal, it was also natural. Nature embodied harmony, the mix of creation and destruction. Gentle rains and storms, harsh winds, forests and mountains. Ponies flocked to settle these new lands back when the population had skyrocketed, and they welcomed the challenge and freedom to choose where they lived- those who had grown born of endless Elysium fields, at least. 

And the third layer was Love- it embodied all that was pure and good in the world. It was the very essence of what made life worth living for this land. For this was the land where friendship and love was born.

This third layer had been easy to chart, seemed to bend to the will of the living with ease, and here they constructed a great city. Possibly the greatest to ever exist.

It was a city of grand structures and beauty. The citizens lived in harmony with each other and the land that surrounded them. There was no suffering or sadness in this place. It was a paradise among paradises- the true ideal society that had been long awaited. Built with care, it was a monument to the greatness of life itself. 

Just below that, was the memorial. The endless forest. Nothing more. Nothing less. Few chose to live there, except for the groundskeepers. 

And below it, was a layer that was turning to most a stark contrast of its ideal. Paradise. The fifth layer.

This was a layer of chaos and destruction - all that was opposite to the top layer and yet, it was all natural to this world.

This layer had no sense of order or peace. It was pure anarchy. Wild beasts and predators roamed freely, and the plants and creatures of this layer were ruthless and feral. It was a brutal place, where violence was king. They had constructed this land as a training ground for those who they sent to the surface. Now it is empty and barren. Not a soul lingers here.

It was a place now of desolation and decay. The lands of hell had claimed this territory as its own and no life dared to intrude within these boundaries. Here, the ground was a barren wasteland, the sky a swirling maelstrom of storms and the very landscape an embodiment of the evil that had swept through the depths. Nearly everything below before Envy's domain was like this. The world was like bedrock, a great wall that ended them all at technically six layers.

And it was here, where Nightmare Moon had been stationed. Yes, she 'presided over Peace', but that was more of a time to relax. It was where she 'lived', but down here was where the work had to be done. Not the most glamourous of work, culling the shadows that had grown rampant and mad. It hurt, oddly enough. 

Still, she pulled a spear of pure light out of the head of a serpentine demon. She pitied them, knowing that their kind deserved better. But this was her station, and this fate was theirs. There were more guardians than her of course. Stronger. Better. A set of twins, occasionally even volunteers from ponies from the upper layers. The Order Of The Sword, they called themselves.

She had grown accustomed to this now- the task of culling the shadows that had spread through the depths. It was a duty that no one else wanted to do, but she had accepted the responsibility.

She knew that the shadows were necessary, for they served a purpose in this world. And yet, they did not care for the order and harmony that she had sworn to uphold above all else. It was a sad fate, but one that she had accepted long ago.

Some shadows were born of malice, and some of pure, undiluted hatred. Those were the ones she paid the most attention to. Those shadows were twisted and cruel, and they had to be erased for the good of all else.

But there were shadows born of grief and sorrow and desperation. And though they were twisted and corrupt, they were not worthy of the same treatment as those twisted ones she sought out.

They were soft jelly-like things. Unnamed, and undeserving of names. These sorrowful specters were always so morose, and they barely even flinched when they were stabbed. Initially, it was these that she encountered, and these lost souls were treated reverently, with respect, and put down gracefully.

Only one had ever escaped the collective knife, and that was one that had turned itself into a tree. The only source of living foliage for eternity.

The sorrowful specters were treated with kindness, with respect and a bit of pity. They were more innocent than the twisted ones. And it broke Nightmare's heart to have to deliver the final blow. She would often hold conversations with them before their souls departed from this world.

But they would not fight or speak, they would simply accept a gentle embrace from the princess of the night's blade before vanishing.

It was the twisted ones that gave her no remorse- it was these that she took joy in removing from this world.

Perhaps it was at one point child of the light, much like her, or the other true-born ponies. But sometimes things go wrong. Their processes failed, or fate pulled a string too tight and now they were severed. In any case, this innocent specter was now without sound or memory.

It did not matter who they were or what they had done before- it mattered not now. Now, they were simply a specter- their identity and status erased. They were just a shadow, nothing more, and she would see that they returned where they belonged.

The twisted shadows would feel no remorse from her, but the sorrowful ones would. It was almost painful how gentle the princess was with these lost souls.

There was an inherent wrongness to it. To feel the mud and false-blood under ones hooves, the way its wet, yet dries in an instant. To return from a spectacle of a battle, to then go back out and find one of these solemn beings wander around lamely and limp. These peaceful things trodded around in contrast to the war around them.

And she felt immense pity for them. It was never their fault that they had become these shadows- they had simply been born that way. And it was these beings that she tried to spare most. They didn't deserve the fate that she had to deliver on them.

She treated them with honor, giving them what they deserved and letting them pass on in peace.

It was the twisted ones, or the ones that she knew had been born from a dark source, that she would cut down without remorse.

Aptly they were called demons. Intrusive thoughts, violent wills, dissidents, and insurrectionists. These ones were like amputated limbs, they came from a larger structure- and were mindless constructs of wrath and agony.

Her spear was the cure to these demons. She would not hesitate, nor show any mercy as she unleashed her wrath upon them. These were beings bred from hatred and violence and they deserved no mercy from the one who was sworn to uphold peace.

She would tear them down, one by one, as her spear glowed with a bright light. It was like cleansing fire, sweeping away the shadows and returning life and order to this layer of hell.

These demons were the ones she hunted, because they were the ones that had escaped from the pit. And as usual, the work would never be finished. There was always one more, one more titan of wrath clawing its way through the mud, one more scarab, these monsters came in all shapes and sizes and representation.

Their numbers would be never-ending. The darkness of this layer meant an infinite supply of demons to slaughter. As she cut down those twisted beings, she would find herself wondering how it would ever end.

They were like a plague- they were not born, they simply were. They were the essence of violence and hatred and every time she destroyed one, another would rise to take its place.

It was a never-ending crusade against these demons, a battle that she had no intention of losing.

And so, the Baroness Of Justice flew back to the camp. There were few landmarks in this level, and the only voidway had also been sealed shut to prevent anything from escaping. Protecting it had been deemed useless and redundant, so the camp had been moved to the last peaceful mark in this layer.

The Lonely Tree.

The lone tree. The tree of sorrow. It had been a sanctuary in this hellish realm and it had been protected for so long.

The tree was a symbol of hope and it is what all this bloodshed fought to protect. The tree had held such a prominent place in this world and it was the one place the darkness could never intrude.

It was a cruel irony then, that the only sign of innocence and peace here had been born from despair. The lonely tree was indeed a sorrowful thing to behold. Its branches did not move gracefully with the wind but instead shuddered in pain, and its leaves fell slowly, like snowflakes.

The tree was a stark contrast to the world around it in every way. Where the sky was a roaring maelstrom of storms and the earth was a swamp of black slime and mud, this tree was a glimpse into the beauty and wonder of life above.

Its branches were twisted from being forced to endure the chaotic elements of this world, but they still bore fruit that were ripe with life, even in the depths.

It was a place of peace in the madness. It was where those who lived in this world could come and find serenity.

The deposed controller of the night sat down and rested below the tree's canopy, as she stared into the crackling flames of an eternal pyre. A few blades rested in them, ones that belonged to the Order. Traditionalists they were, preferring to use blades instead of weapons of light and magic.

The flames crackled before her, casting a glow on her and the tree that she sat under. Its soft glow lit up her face with the warmth and comfort of a mother to a child.

Nightmare's eyes closed as she sat beneath the tree. Its tranquil embrace and the heat of the flames made her feel at home, as if she were in a peaceful world far away from all the madness around her.

Her name, was once upon a time one that promoted fear in a world far away. This, she did not know. Nor did anypony else for that matter. The name of the mare resting by the flames, was the Angel Of Nightmares.

The Baroness of Justice, the Princess of Night, the Shadow of the Cosmos.

She possessed many names and titles, but she was many things beyond what she was called. She was a warrior and a protector.

She had fought- would fight for these lands, for this world. She would know- and knew its secrets, its depths and its heights.

She was only one of many who would cleanse the darkness and restore peace to this world.

And others did indeed arrive. Other groups from The Order. They came to the green zone, and sat around the pyre as well, taking stock of their equipment, the chips in their blades, dents in armor. Unlike some volunteers who had boons from the shadows, these traditionalists used mettle and sheer will.

The Order was the most traditional and ancient of the groups that had banded together to fight in this war. The Order had been around for as long as time and they were among those who held the deepest knowledge about this world and its people. At least, that was what they claimed.

They had no powers or weapons blessed by shadow- they instead wielded metal and their own will to fight the shadows that had encroached. They were the ones that had maintained the peace and order in the old world before it was destroyed by darkness and violence.

The Order Of The Sword was what was left after consolidating the remaining forces and ideals that were passed down from the original order, The Order Of Harmony.

They were the remnants of what once was, the ones who still kept the memory of what had been lost. They wielded the relics of the old world and were sworn to uphold the same teachings and traditions that the original Order had held so dear. Or at least, that was their intention.

Nightmare looked at the squadron. Four ponies, appearing relatively young. Three earth ponies and a single unicorn, dressed in muddied whites and dented plate mail. Their garb was a perfect blend of ceremonial and functionality, as chainmail was visible glinting in the firelight underneath gashes in the fabric

The four ponies sat around the fire, their tired gaze cast out on the flames as the ordered their equipment. Their armor was dented, but their equipment was otherwise well-kept- a sign of pride and discipline.

They all appeared young but their experience was not to be underestimated. These four ponies had fought through the darkest nights and yet, their resilience showed no signs of faltering.

They were a strange sight in this world of darkness and mud- pure, white cloaks and armor, shimmering in the light of the eternal flames. Their armor was dented and scratched, showing the wounds of battle that they had endured. And yet this was only surface damage- underneath, where no pony could see, the wounds were much deeper, but they were covered by their pride and duty to protect.

Their pride and discipline were a symbol of honor and a reminder of what had once been. They were true warriors- protectors of the innocent and servants of true justice. They wore their scars like badges of honor, proof of their courage in the face of darkness.

And all under the veil of their white cloaks, they each carried the deepest of scars that no one could ever see. Scars that left tired bags under the eyes, fatigue in the flesh and bones that no sleep could ever wash away, and a dulling of the eyes and sensation that no amount of honing could ever bring back.

The four ponies were silent, and they bore a look of exhaustion and determination.

The light of the fires lit up their faces and exposed the scars on their flesh. Their bodies bore the signs of war and yet, they stood strong and unwavering.

Collectively they all sat around the fire, as distant blasts lit up the sky with vibrant pulses of blues and purple. They withdrew food, bundles of hay, apples, and retort pouches of cold stews and more filling meals.

They ate their meals in silence, their exhausted faces betraying the trials of battle while their bodies nourished themselves with the meals that they had prepared. There was little conversation, as the four ponies were deep in thought. They had experienced so much together and now, faced with a whole new world, they had little time to rest in this quiet serenity.

The fires before them crackled with heat as they ate their rations. The flames bathed their faces and brought a warmth that could not be found anywhere else in this world. It was a moment of peace and quiet, an oasis amid the chaos that they had faced in their battles against the shadows.

Their morale had been fatigued. The fighting had gone on for quite some time, and there was only one word that hung in the air unspoken.

Demobilization.

The word hung silently in the air between them, unspoken yet known by all. They were tired and exhausted, and there was no denying the effect that this had on their morale.

They had fought for so long, and now, the thought of ending the war was a comforting one. A chance for a return to normal lives and a chance to be able to rest and recover from the immense amount of stress and exhaustion that they had endured.

They'd all go home. To those who actually had homes to return to, at least, Nightmare had no such station to behold over outside of her duties. They would all go home, and then another turn of fresh faced, greenhorn volunteers and fighters would descend to continue the fight.

They would all go home, and then another cycle would begin. New fighters would arrive and then they too would grow weary. It was a never-ending cycle that would never seem to end.

Nightmares' own home was no place to return to. She had no station to return to or anyone who truly welcomed her home. She was the Baroness of Justice, the Princess of Night, and the Shadow of the Cosmos.

Her home was her duty- there was nothing else.

Nothing else. Nothing else. When was the last time she had seen warm sunlight? Not since creation, at the latest, and possibly not since the last time she visited the first layer in an age.

She had no idea.

She had no idea when she last saw the light of the sun. There were moments when she wondered what it felt like to be bathed in that warmth, to see a blue sky and to feel the grass and soil beneath her hooves.

But that was a thought for another time. Her duty, her home and her identity were bound to this world of darkness and madness. This was the only home she knew- and possibly, the only home she would ever know.

Time, was dead. Put simply, time had no meaning. That, or she had also forgotten how long she'd been performing this profane work.

She stared at the pyre, trying to recall the last time she'd seen the sun. When they had sent them all down here. There was a parade of some sorts.

The parade. Had it been just a few days ago? Or had it been decades? She would never know the answer.

As the memories of the parade washed over her, she also recalled a sense of happiness. A joy that she had not felt in so long. It was a bittersweet memory, one that brought tears to her eyes and a deep sense of longing for such a day to return.

A doll. A little filly with a coat as black as night had gifted her a silly little trinket. She wasn't old enough to fight, they all knew that. So she gave them a doll.

And now, she looked back on this memory with a melancholic smile. The little filly with her pure and innocent soul, who had given her that doll.

The doll was simple, it was meant as a child's toy, but the memories it held were precious to her. It represented everything that she had fought so hard to protect- innocence and joy and life.

That doll. That sweet little filly and her innocent smile. The little toy she had gifted to the Angel of Nightmares- a reminder of her tender age and of the innocence that she still possessed.

The doll was a reminder of what this world would have been without darkness. It was a reminder of what this world could have been... if only it had not been for the shadows.

The doll. A silly toy, a piece of innocence from a child that was yet to understand the atrocities of this world.

Yet it was more than just a child's toy in Nightmares' eyes. It was a symbol, the symbol of all that had been lost and all that could have been saved. The innocence and joy that it represented had been stripped away, but still held on in nightmares heart.

It was a reminder of the beauty that once was and the world she had worked so hard to protect.

It was no one's fault that things had turned out this way. Sure, there were factors. But this had all been decided long since any one with the power to say otherwise had been born or created.

This was the way of the world and there was no changing it now. The tapestry had been woven and the strands of fate had been intertwined to create this world in its current state.

The sticks had been drawn, the pages written. This, was the only way it could have ended

It was a world that was tainted, and even with the best of intentions, there was no way to truly turn the tides and restore the innocence and beauty that had once been here.
> A Dead Mares Words.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We built this city on hopes and dreams. We carved her towers from the marrow of this layer, covered her bare walls with his flayed flesh, and gave her a beating heart that sang louder than ours ever could. 

We never named her, her streets, we never gave her a name. She didn't need one, because all of us knew her name in our hearts.

We bled for this city just as much as the shadows bled for us, and we shared together a fire we believed would last forever.

But in the end, it did not matter. 

Now, let us bleed for her.

This city could not save not a single life, not the many who died outside of her, or the many who died inside of her, but it was here that we remembered what it was to live. Truly live. For that, we will always love her. For that, we die without regret.

She will not die a colorless husk. All-mother grant me strength, for If I can even paint a single patch red before I must go. I will. Let me paint this town red. One final time. Let me paint.
> The Final War
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The final war had begun.

It was a battle unlike anything seen before, a battle that would decide the fate of everything. The stakes were high, the stakes were everything.

Victory could spell the end of the conflict and the beginning of a new era of peace. But defeat would mean the downfall of the world and the triumph of darkness and despair.

The final war, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Because it begins with a simple word. A lone order. The push of a button.

Rise.

Envy could do it. He could command the beasts to rise, bringers of the apocalypse. He could order them to rise, bend this world to move his innocent population to safety and let loose the dogs of war.

The final war rose from the depths of hell like a roaring fire. It began with a single word, a single command that set the gears of war into motion.

Envy had risen the beasts, unleashed them upon the world. They were the dogs of war and they were ravenous.

And then, the final march began.

The final war wasn't a great battle. It was the end of inner turmoil, it was finality, it was the ending of the end, the last decision, made by one who never held the rights to do so.

And it had been decided. After years of sitting in the dark, running the same thoughts over and over on repeat, the choice had been made.

Exterminate everything.

The final march was a brutal affair. Nothing was spared from the wrath of these soldiers.

All flesh was to be destroyed, all lives extinguished.

This was the final war and nothing would be left standing at its conclusion.

The beasts awakened in sequences, awakening as their cities were filled to capacity.

When the city was full- the march would begin.

One by one, the beasts would emerge from their city and they would march in unison towards a singular target.

For the beasts, this was a call to arms. For the beasts, this was a directive.

It was the beginning of a great slaughter.

A great tragedy.

The awakening of the beasts had brought great devastation to the world. They stepped on each layer like stairs, breaking through the skies like a ceiling, shattering stars and rending time asunder with every flap of a wing.

Their march had been a cataclysm, a calamity that shattered the world and broke the very fabric of time itself.

It was the beginning of a great tragedy that would echo through the ages.

The tragedy of failure.

Three times now had anyone dared to reach out to the light. And every time they fell further.

Infighting began- riots about what was happening- friendly blood spilled underhoof. The evacuation was incomplete. They'd missed much. Too much.

The attempts to reach out to the light had always ended in failure.

Friend turned against friend and blood was spilled on all sides.

Now, there was nothing left to do but face the consequences.

Envy watched the ensuing chaos with deadened eyes.

He had caused this.

The chaos and bloodshed that had been unleashed- it was all his fault.

And now, he had to live with this.

The final war had begun, and there was no turning back.

The beasts had been unleashed and the world was in chaos.

It was a great tragedy, one that would echo through the ages.

Envy felt the world crumble beneath his hooves and he watched, deadened eyes staring into the depths of the abyss.

Sorrow gripped his heart as he realized the extent of what he had caused.

This was his doing.

All too quickly had he forgotten about his commandments and His teachings, and this was his just reward- for the wages of sin was death.

Envy had failed and he was now paying the price.

He had forgotten the commandments and his teachings, and his failure was a testament to that.

For a time, he had believed that he could succeed where others had failed- blind hope and faith and perverted emotions had kept him going.

He had forgotten the commandments and his teachings, and his failure was a testament to that.

For a time, he had believed that he could succeed where others had failed- blind hope and faith had kept him going.

But now, he saw the truth. He had failed.

Failure after failure, but his faith refused to falter.

Failure after failure, the results refused to alter.

And now. Now there was nothing left.
> Lamentations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inhale.

With the world's final breath, the world turned beautiful. From every shining ruin and every derelict home, did many flowers of every tree and every color of every thought and design sprout. Blossoms bloomed in pools of blood and violent fields, cradling the dead in gentle wreathes and comforting the remaining living, guiding them to places further unseen.

Leviathan held no more power, and across every layer of the realm did warm rains fall around in every land bereft of mercy. Fat raindrops like tears fell from the skies, as leviathan rained upon the world with its own tears. Powerless. Impotent. Be it in the shining skies of the layer of peace, or within the storming lands of hardship of Paradise, the tears of the great beasts mercy fell freely. There was nothing it could to do stop what was set in motion now, only watch, hope, and do. Helpless, the sacred beast felt its mind slip, and madness wanted to overtake its heart.

With an exhale, skies cracked and the sun flickered and dimmed, illusions of reality breaking and bursting at the seams. Rage. Rage against the dying of the light. To not go gentle into that good night. Time itself shattered, and the world became locked in time. Suns would not set, and the crumbling would stop, but this world was gone. The cost of a fatal error, a ritual foil- for the weapon was turned against all evil, and in their hubris, they failed to see that they too had become like the word they despised.

The world was gone.

Beautiful.
> Where The Streets Have No Name
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am alive.

That's all I have left.

I was abandoned. There were sirens. Shadows came in batches, swallowing up everything. I only saw something burst through the ground and beyond the skies before it all just.

Stopped.

The sirens have stopped. The sky has stopped falling. The rubble is fixed in place. Everything is as it will probably ever be. 

And I am alive.

I have been wondering alone. For three days. I've been haunting the ruins just like the others. Wandering around, skulking around in the dark, hiding when the skies turn black. 

I am alive. But the others...

They aren't alive. 

I found what was left of Holly Boughs. The flower keeper loved selling blue daisies for the celebration. Not anymore now. I thought they'd been spirited away too. But I found her. 

I just wish it wasn't just her cutie mark that was all I could recognize. She's been split in two. I don't know where her front has gone. 

The world is full of miracles. And nobody has died in ages. I... I hold onto the hope that she got treatment. That she's alive. 

The only comfort is the stone steps beneath me and shattered glass.

Nobody I find is rotted. Their blood remains fresh. Bodies cold, lightless, lifeless, but they do not rot.

I wonder why.

I've seen a few things. Nothing ever like this. I was irrelevant really, just living day by day, being happy, talking to others. Now it's all gone. I know where my favorite restaurant once was. I know where my home was in this sprawl. I know how my daily life is supposed be like.

But it's gone. Scrubbed. Unmade. 

It's all dead.

I walk past a gray mare. It still shocks me. Not her. Not anymore. I never knew this pony. No, it shocks me that death is real. That things do die. She died reaching out to a wall. Hooves caked in blood and smeared all over the concrete and stones. Lime painted pink. Scrawls in red ink.

I'm not going to turn her over to see the injury. I can guess if I'm that curious. 

I guess she really did paint one last time.

The sky is a broken screen. There's shimmers around the wound those things left. It was hell on earth. Riots broke out as they saw these things just ripping their way through everything.. Then it stopped. And then they went away.

Sometimes when there's weather. When there's a storm. I see them. Stomping in the infinite distance- just the outline behind thunder. Walking lamely away. Further each day.

I hide away when it rains. My home is still intact. I like to hide under the covers and close the blinds and pretend it's another stormy night. 

But storms don't eat corpses. I watched the water melt them. Over and over they just dissolve and come back the next day.

The world won't let us rot.

The world won't let us die.

I stay in my home until the food is gone. Then I spend days out there in the ruins looking for more and bringing it back. If I focus on my home. I can just pretend. Pretend everything is fine and that it isn't all over. That there is chance of rescue. That I will see the sun. That...

...

One day the stores will be empty. No more cakes. No more crackers. No more bread or salted cheese, or beer or rye, no more flour or eggs. 

One day I think I'll waste away as I wander away looking for more. 

I'm scared.

...

I once saw a statue of God. I knew it was on a corner on a street near my home. It's a snake, staring up at the heavens. I walked by it every day as a colt, wondering why it was always staring up. Mom said it was because there was nowhere to go but up.

It was tradition to offer something to the idols. Weapons. Food. Clothing. Dolls. And usually you got something back. I remember getting a chocolate bar in exchange for an empty glass bottle.

But it's gone.

It's not there anymore. 

I saw it somewhere else. Near Holly. Poised over her like it was suffering. Weeping. Jaws open in a twisted hiss. At first I thought it was mocking her.

But realized it was mourning her. 

I hope I don't see it hovering over me.

Ever.

...

I went to the library. 

The librarian was there.

All these years I never knew she was a phantom. But I can tell that it's her. Slumped over as black matter. But somehow I just know.

I gave her a curt nod. And I went through the motions of checking out a few texts. I'm the last one to ever enter these halls. 

Paper. Worth more than gold. Infinite potential, empty canvas and ripe for inscription. There was a copy of an old famous painting, one of the first that were ever painted- mounted over a fireplace. The hearth was warm, but the fire was gone. Only embers remained. 

The carpet was soft. The library was to learn, and to comfort. It smelled of wood and gentle pine-smoke and old parchment. Everything had been made to be dim, yet the wood they had built it all from remained a rich dark color, and everyone could read clearly.

So that's what i did. 

I read.

And I understood, nothing.

We were kept in the dark about this. But it came from below me. So, one of the lower layers had this monster under it. But nothing here could exist without it being made, according to a mixture of legend and history, our Ultimate Evil could only commit evil acts, so it created lesser things to commit good acts. It destroyed a piece of the world to make a new one, and tore pieces of itself that became the sun and the land.

Again. That's legend. And that was from old text published from The Order. Fanatics. 

But all evidence points to those things being designed. 

Why?

A question for someone who could still care.

There's some text about a baron. I don't care too much on how the angelos were made, it's not important now. I don't see them anywhere anymore. 

The remaining texts seem so irrelevant. Novels. Fiction. Theories on spells and science. Nothing that I think can help me.

You'd think after such a catastrophe the serpent would show its face and at least parade around the idea of rebuilding.

But I don't see them anywhere.

I left the library. I walk pass Miss Morrow, with a nod and a gentle wave goodbye.

They do the same. I think.

I am alive.

The world has ended.

But things go on.

And I am alone.
> The Morning Wind Blows
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun shines. 

The grass blows.

Ponies are walking.

Flowers are blooming.

And the wind, sings.

They would all go on. Unknowing of the destruction and suffering below. The sun would rise and fall day in and day out and pu behind it a curtain of stars painted from a distant galaxy of a world they would never know. 

But they would know that the morning wind would feel different.

The rays of light felt cooler. 

The warm waters refreshed more, the wind sharper, the winters more bitter. Like a gentle piece of the world had been lost.

They would gather around. They'd watch the gate at the center of town, sealed off since forever. 

And they would feel a cool mourning wind, and a siren song call of the dead.
> Lonely Winds [End]
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crumbling.

Falling.

It was all going away.

It's ponies, retreated and fleeing to the depths of the world, again, and to the farthest rims of reality. The other shadows, their minds became clouded, warped. Twisted.

His lonely, wayward subjects had needed the presence of a king. A steady hand of love and peace to guide the flock, a comforting warmth that for all of its efforts and spite and moxie, it could not provide. 

For all intents and purposes, it's world was ending, and once again so was His.

Massive was its bloated presence, filled with the hatred it had stolen over the ages from the ponies, the changelings, even the other shades. A tyrant. It was a titanic leviathan of emotions, laying at the very pit of it's own despair and crumbling aspirations. A massive, corpse of guilt and gluttony- crushing itself under its own weight.

Silence.

Introspection.

Everything, had reached the end, everywhere, all over again. It's heart, rotten and petrified and shriveled, beat slowly. Enslaved to a broken machine.

It's fire, its unyielding flame, was dimming, leaving only the cooling coals and embers as wind sung mournfully. Here, at the very end of everything, it had come to a sickening and begrudging realization.

Envy, as it began to realize, was not a being of pure hate. Nor was it a being of pure guilt. No, somehow, as it lay down beneath an infinite expanse of nothing, dying just like the others, it realized that somehow, sometime, it's blood held love. By hating something more than another, it had developed its own system of love, in some twisted sense. Clearly, if it had no moral conscience, no empathy, and no feelings, then it wouldn't have been laying under its immense weight. If it had no feelings beyond hatred, then it wouldn't have been here. It would have simply been blinded by itself, and no doubt slaughtered everyone and everything. But it didn't. It hated life, found it disgusting and stupid and confusing, but it did not despise it nearly as much as it despised death, murder, and thieves. It mattered not if what was stolen was life or material. It was all loathsome. 

It disliked life. But it realized that it did not hate the act of living. It's greed for life, was merely a perversion of its love and adoration for the ones above it. Yes, Envy did lord over all. But it found that it truly did love life.

It saw the crumbling ruins of its- no, not its cities, but the cities of its prized friends. And it felt pride. It had failed, extraordinarily and spectacularly, failed to bring salvation to a cold, dark world. But it had succeeded in giving them a last look of life. It decided then, that no matter what happened, it would never have changed a thing. It would never have changed fate.

For the first time, it felt itself feel cold. Not the cold winds, but itself, was cold. It was so cold. The warmth of joy was not enough, and the fires of hate died down. For all of its greed, it never once collected warm, and for all of its hunger, could never be insatiable.

It began to inch closer to itself, slowly, steadily, it moved on fresh and crooked limbs in an infinite crumbling expanse. Horizons, bled over the shattered night skies, the suns dipping beneath a great inky barrier. Land, did not exist this far down, and the earth that did lay shattered and broken.

Envy began to think. Spiraling.

Our father; we pray there be a heaven. 

Hallowed, made your name. 

You made me to lie in green pastures, and lead us to clearer waters, to restore our soul.

Yes, though I walk now, from the shadows in the valley of death. I have feared no evil.

Your bones. And your staff. Comfort me. 

I have walked the path of righteousness in your names sake, as you prepared a table before the presence of our enemies, our cups running over. Surely expecting goodness and mercy to follow you, for all your days.

Bless me now with your fierce tears.

Envy felt as it reached the end of itself, as it began to crawl over its own mass, hideous to itself no more. The great lizard moved to comfort itself. As it gripped firmly its own heart, and could sense not another living being as it descended, it realized that it was not alone. It was. It felt, warm.


Inevitable, all-powerful, all encompassing was its leviathan form, and it fell in love with itself, as it's own embrace crushed itself to death.

> A Fly Has Been Drawn To The Rotting Cheese.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


"LIKE FLIES ARE DRAWN TO THE ROTTING CHEESE, ARE SADISTS ATTRACTED TO MISERY"








Darkness billows out from the long defunct gateway. A violent purple hoof stepping out onto a old stone road. 

An intruder. That is what the thing that had stepped into their decomposing kingdom was. The light from Celestia's sun, and one of its invasive pests. A simple scholarly mare at her core, Twilight Sparkle. 

After a month of picking over the bones of ancient research and ruins- this is what her investigation had brought her to. An entirely new world. Her mind worked overtime as she looked around observant, and cautious. The air smelled sweet, oddly sweeter than the air above, and she had landed on the outskirts of somewhere. 

The wind blew gently in intervals, and if the pony looked closer, she could see the blades of grass physically reverse and recoil at her touch. This world had been temporally locked, and time itself held no meaning in this layer. The sun was upon the mid-day, and the sky was broken. Pieces of twilight and evening blended together, hues of yellow and white and orange all mixed in patches. 

And the sun was missing pieces.

Broken and shattered, a dead world lit itself up at the request of an opened door, and it waited, and watched. It watched the mare wander and wonder, and it watched her become lost as she explored the nearly endless fields of limbo. Empty towns were rebuilt and reformed, preserved of everything including dust, intending to entertain and inform; and it watched her descend almost entirely peacefully, deeper and deeper into itself without resistance, before it at last saw the mare struggle. Puzzles, failsafes, security codes and danger awaited deeper into the belly of the dead land.

So it introduced itself as the only way it could have. 

A city that would bleed its secrets for her.

The Only Way It Could Have Ended.