Prologue

Gabriel gasped, time seemed to stop, the world itself freezing as a long, flaming blade bit through his chest, and sliced his heart. His own sword dropped from his mouth, cracking a few teeth, and clanging onto the ground with a thud. Soon, he himself followed. He collapsed onto his side, his mane scattering about his face in strands of black, gleaming with sweat, and soaking in his own blood.
Every time his heart thumped, it sent spurts of blood out through the gash, and waves a pain through his twitching, convulsing body.
Through it he looked up, and saw a black stallion clad in simple iron armor, with fur lining it around the right shoulder, and chest. Atop his head was a crown, iron as the armor, with words engraved into it in an odd language. The flaming sword came to a rest in a sheath strapped to the stallion’s back, and as it did, the flames withered away.
The bastard, the overconfident, cock-sure bastard…
Gabriel coughed, blood spattered on the sandy ground before him, the little cave sideways in his vision. He was dying. And he could do nothing but watch his killer as he did.
“This did not have to come to pass, young one. I want you to know I take no pride, no joy, in ending your life.”
Gabriel scowled, his body shivered. He was cold, odd, the room was almost scalding moments ago. He gritted his teeth. “D…amn…you…Gwyn…”
Gwyn knelt down, and clasped Gabriel’s mane with his teeth, dragging him along the floor.
The pain was so intense, the younger one thought he would pass out from it, but he knew that if he did, he would not wake up again. Every inch he was dragged, he began to feel that may not be a bad thing.
In his peripheral vision, he could see a frighteningly thick scarlet trail behind him, painting his agonizing path with his life blood.
At last, he came to rest at the core of the room, a pit, barely so. He felt warmth at the top of his head, a dull warmth that refused to spread to the rest of his body, which had grown so cold it throbbed and ached in addition to the waves of pain.
He watched Gwyn settle down beside him, a stoic expression on his darkened face.
“I want only the continued prosperity of my kind, our kind. What is it which fuels you to endanger your friends and family so?”
Gabriel tried to spit at him, curse him, anything as an act of defiance. Anything but this…this pity.
Gwyn closed his eyes, nodding solemnly. “Right, I had forgotten, your family is dead, hollow, as soon you too shall be…”
His ragged breathes were growing further, and further apart with each passing second. The pain made them short, and unsatisfying, yet even when he tried to push through it, he couldn’t get a full gulp of air. His vision began to darken, it seemed time itself was weighing down his eyelids, eager to push him from existence, and into an eternal slumber, or worse, the wretched unlife of a hollow.
By Celestia, was that really to be his fate? To wander the land with his flesh rotting, and his mind lost? He shivered, partially to the cold, and partially to his fear.
“I will see to it your body is brought to the Undead Asylum, where at least you will continue your existence, until we find a way to… cure you.”
Gabriel could have screamed. Why? Why was his fate suddenly damned? Why couldn’t he just die, and spend his afterlife happily instead of being bound to this world in a hollow, rotted husk?
“I pray only that your soul find comfort in the fact that you will not harm anyone, ever again. Goodbye, child.”
Then Gwyn stood, and walked away from him, towards the back of the cave, into darkness that enveloped his umbral form instantly.
Gabriel lay still, the rising and falling of his side slowing, and slowing, and slowing.
He gazed emptily at the darkness, every ounce of his hate, and guilt, and sorrow, and fear drained from his eyes and left them colorless.
Then he sighed, and breathed no more.