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The Steadfast Sky

by TheGreyPotter

Chapter 77: LXXV : The Fallen Sky

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The Fallen Sky I
The Grey Potter
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/11495/The-Steadfast-Sky
http://cosmicponyfiction.tumblr.com

~Flea~

“Bringers of Harmony!”

My hooves skiffed the bright white marble, once, twice, thrice, frice, as I soared my way through the Canterlot halls. Leastways I wasn’t a-wearing those gold shoes. Nope. Kicked those off in the bunkhouse, right a-way. But sun up, sun down, this is how heavy the full-feather armor was supposed to be? And did it have to be so flapping clinky?

“Hail! Harmony Bringers!” I shouted, “Git out here!”

“Flea!” some one guy was shouting. There was a steady ka-clop ka-clop of grounder hooves behind me. “Stop, for sake of the sun! Stop!”

I pulled a nice lil’ bank in midair, shooting down another nice ‘n white hallway. In me old apprentice armor, the metal plates woulda cut right into my wing-joints. But not this nice goldie armor! Nope! I like me this gig, more and more!

“BER! ING! GERS!” I bellowed, “Where ya go?! I gotta swear me unending loyalty to ya!”

And all of a-sudden I let out a big-old YELP! Something gots my tail in his gross grounder mouth!

“Slow!” the grounder grunted, “Down!”

“Apple Brandy you snake!” I shouted, “Whad-did-aye say about ma tail?!

Still flapping up in the air, I joyously bucked behind me. There was a ‘clink’ as I hit the broadside of Brandy’s (also) shiny gold armor. Griffin kaka! I hits his armor! And he’s not gonna to do a thing about it!

“Settle down, Flea!” Brandy said, ma tail still in his mouth. “The Elements aren’t here, you big goof!”

“What?!” I squawked, “Why ain’t they?!”

“Well if you’ll land, I could tell you!”

He let go of my tail, but bucks to landing! I turned and flip-flapped all in his face, keeping my eyes level to his eyes, my body floating up above mah face.

He spat a little, rubbing his ankle across his tongue, “Bleh. Your hair’s still so greasy… What did I tell you about bathing, Flea?”

“A-dunk-a-week-to-stop-the-stink.” I recited, “Also somethin’ bout soap. Now betta talk, ya bigger goof! Where are the Bringers of Harmony?!”

“Well for one they’re actually called—“

“Dun care!” I says! “Where are they?!”

“They’re out getting the rest of the Elements,” he said, “They’ve been out there for nearly a month now.”

I imitated Brandy’s best disappointed head-shake, and I said:

“An’ no pony thought to tell me…

“You were training!” he says right back.

“Fer the position of defendin’ the Bringers of Harmony!”

He harrumphed, “They’re not called the Bringers—“

“An’ now I gotta go chase ‘em down to swear my loyalty to ‘em,” I harrumphed. “Thanks, Brandy!

“Flea. The swearing ceremony was underway—“

“To an ole horseshoe!” I shot back, “I aint swearin’ to no horseshoe nothin’

“It’s a valuable artifact!” Brandy kept a-going on, “That shoe was once worn by Princess Platinum herself! It represents your oath to the entire royal line, not just to a single pony!”

“Swearin’ loyalty to those Bearer’s faces ‘ll be quicker, AN’!” I ruffled my feathers, bobbing up in the air, “They c’n see with they’s own six eyes that me made it!

Brandy, for the single first time in his grounder life, actually hushed up and nodded along. Because it was true, plain as the clinky gold armor on mah back. I made it!

An’ that’s all there is to say about that!

But then!

In that single quiet moment, jus between me an’ him in those quiet corridors… They suddenly stopped bein’ so quiet-like. Echoing offa all the rock, there was a distant, roaring thundercrack.

I frowned, cuz, really? I said to Brandy, in case he didn’t know:

“City ain’t got a thunderhead on th’ docket.”

Brandy started goin’ pale as a gust o wind.

He said, “A mineshaft explosion…?” he did.

“Wierd place to jump to there, Brandy!” I told him, “Well? Stop standin’ like yeh got a stick up yer bum! Less go ‘n see!”

With barely a flip-flap of my wings, I dove right back round the corner and soared for the door, for open air. An right behind me was the ka-clop ka-clop of Brandy’s grounder hooves.

Welp. There’s lots a places that I could be, an’ he couldn’t. No point in waitin’ up fer him!

I bust my way outta the door, dove past the pastel smear of the fancy ponies, and dove right up to open sky. There weren’t no thunderhead, that’s for sure. Even when one’s on the docket, my free-flying wingmates don’ like makin’ em much. All that stormwater stuffed together… not a pretty or comfortable sight for the once-brand. Them Canterlot ponies, theys understand.

But there it be again. A big, deep, loud boom, coming up right after the second.

“Flea!”

I looked down at Brandy, a little shouty splat of yellow in a sea of pretty pinks and purples.

He shouted ups at me, “Carry me down to Ponyville!”

“Yer crazy!” I shouted right back down.

“We need to see if the miners need help!”

“We won’ help nobody if we drop like an iron rock!”

“What?!”

I harrumphed and swooped a lil lower. Gotta make mah words clear for the grounder-type, so he’s doesn’t misunderstand mah point.

“You gotta big butt!” I shouted, “And your armor’s not exactly light o wind neither!”

“Well can you go?!” Brandy a-shouted back, “I mean, what do you see?!”

“Nothin’! All’s I see is clouds an’ clouds an’ clouds…”

But then!

A boom came for the thrice time. An’, since I a-looked down, I did think I saw somethin’ in that big ole wall of clouds. An’ if there was anythin’ I knew from a lifetime of stirrin’ dose sicknasty things, it was how theys were supposed to look. And where, in open air, they were supposed to sit.

I flapped down, over the cliff, an’ thought to myself:

‘Those look darker.’

‘Those looker meaner.’

‘Like theys made of snakes.’

An’ deys not apposed to be slidin’ down the mountain dat way?

I frowned, an’ said:

“Is mah eyes playin’ tricks on me? This can’t be happenin’…”

~Pith~

I craned my neck up, staring at the Griffin’s up-side down cloud towers. The white glare was near impossible to look at directly, especially after exiting the dark of the Sickle Raven’s home base. A hoof served as a second shade, the lip of my cap not nearly wide enough to protect from the glare.

“Pith?” Sprout asked. The colt sure had sprouted, that’s for sure. His snout nearly stood above my shoulders. “What’cha looking at?”

“The birds sure did seem agitated after that thunder,” I replied.

Sprout peered up after me as more Ravens flowed around us. They looked both ways, made sure nopony was looking before clopping out into the streets, one by one. After that last raid… well, best to be careful. Lay low, not hang around in groups for a while.

For a while, Sprout and I just looked up at those clouds, listening to the click of hooves. Somewhere, there was a distant plinking of water, the dribble of clothes let out to dry in the grungy streets.

Sprout asked, “Are the Pegasi staging another escape?”

“Good on them, if they are,” I replied, “Not like we can do anything for them down here.”

“Yeah…”

I squinted, trying to make out the little specks among the distant cloud towers. The fat little figures, griffins more than likely, certainly seemed to be zipping around way faster than normal.

“No groups yet,” I pointed out, “Not of Pegasi or Griffin. Not down under the clouds, at least.”

“Be safer for the slaves to come down here!” Sprout said, “Lots of places to hide. Lots of groups to hide with!”

“They know this city as well as we know theirs,” I said, “I doubt they’d easily find safety here.”

Sprout stared upwards, squinting. His muddy hoof lifted over his eyes. He asked, “Think the Pegasi are doing that?”

“Doing what?

“That,” he repeated, “Look at the base of the towers… Gosh, that’s spreading pretty quick.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out just what I was seeing. It was like a gray stain was spreading through the clouds. It seeped and soaked through the base, down the slow swirl of the griffin towers. The spread dribbled like water across a sheet, except the stains were just growing darker and darker.

And... Well, I rubbed my eyes several times, and looked again.

I asked Sprout, “Do you think the towers are tipping?”

“Huh?”

There was a heavy splattering sound, constant and rapid. I could barely react before rain smacked the cobbles around me. Cold rain. It hit my skin like icy knives, sending jets of freezing pain deep into my body.

Shit!” I shook my head violently, nearly tossing off my hat. “The hell is this?! Sleet?”

“Gross,” Sprout cried, “it’s sticky!”

“Sticky?!”

“Get it off! Augh! It stings.”

Black liquid flew from Sprout’s hooves, splattering on the pavement. It was thick and muddy rain, almost oily. Almost solid, like some kind of jelly.

I stared at my foreleg, at the water sliding thickly down my fetlocks. I could barely think, my thoughts scrambling as more of it fell from the sky, digging like knives. A dark, blackish purple jelly, numbing…

“INSIDE!” I bellowed, “Get everybody back inside the hideout!”

~Redheart~

Pitter …. patter patter… Plap. Plap.

I looked up, and the cold gray rock spun across my desk and clattering to the floor. Yes, a desk of all things. I was just sitting here idly, spinning my rapidly cooling stones. It was all I could do now. Was this all I was meant to be? Regaled to an administrative role in my own hospital? I would give anything to get that Element back safe and—

PLAP.

I sighed, and looked towards the window. Was somebody slinging mud at the pane? I did not think this decision would be so divisive for some ponies. Everyone just seems to have accepted this new order far too easily for my liking.

PLUP.

I stood, intent on retrieving the fallen shard of stone and nothing more. Well… while I was up, I may as well look and see if I could catch the hooligan who would blame me for the changes to The Sanatorium. As if I had much choice when gods were involved.

I floated the rock up beside me, and turned to the cold glass. It was obscured by some thick material, of course. But it did not look like mud. Much too thick. For a dull moment, I resigned to the fate of having manure slung at me. Perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps the rain would wash the gooey black mess away.

But of course, after all these weeks of wet, dreary weather, the rain had stopped barely a half hour past. Just my luck.

PLAT.

Another thick black lump splattered across the window pane, wobbling violently. I hesitated. Was it chocolate pudding? No, who is the world would waste something so valuable just to mock me? I moved closer, trying to see, to understand exactly what it was being thrown. Perhaps who was throwing this material as well.

From the window, from the wall, I felt an intensely cold draft. Perhaps these were frozen chunks of snow? Black hail? That still wasn’t quite right…

Whatever it was, it was sliding down the pane sluggishly. In what little I could see of the world beyond, I saw that the curtains of rain had indeed stopped. But it had been quickly replaced by some kind of thick, amorphous hail.

Puzzled, I said, “What in the world?”

A tremor of movement caught my eye. I glanced down. Did something else hit my window? I didn’t hear anything. The muck had slid all the way down the glass, and was now slowly collecting into a wet, formless mass on the sill. Not quite like mud, and not quite black either. A thick, wet purple—

An eye rolled across the mass, focusing directly upon me.

And I screamed.

~Bookends~

For the longest time, I simply stared at the blemish on my page. Certainly, the past few weeks had been wet. And certainly, the Shrine of Loyalty had sprung quite a fair number of leaks. But here, of all places. With a second floor above my head, I would think here would be a safe place to illuminate the page.

But there it was. A raindrop. A black smudge on the paper! Why, the document could be ruined by such damage if I was not otherwise prepared. I promptly reached for the bit of cloth I use to clean ink off my snout, and dabbed the page lightly with the single unblemished corner.

Yet, perhaps the corner was not clean at all. For all it did was a leave a large, black smear. Not soon after, the blot was joined by two more. Fat drops that rapped gently on the parchment, spreading thickly.

“Oh for the sake of the Alicorns!” I cried, “Ruined! How is a mare supposed to work in these conditions?!”

My only answer was an ice-cold drop on my shoulder, frigid cold searing through the thick material of my cloak.

“Did somebody spill a bucket up there?!” I shouted, looking up. The black stone looked wet, certainly. And leaking something fierce. Fat black drops rolled off the cold stone, falling in thick lumps or ropey strings. My goodness, what could have possibly been spilled up there? Liquid tar?

Suddenly, a drop of water fell into my gaping mouth.

It was as if my entire neck had been jammed with an ice-cold fire. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs wouldn’t pump. My throat had been reduced to swollen, dead flesh. Icy nails shot through my skull. My guts heaved, and all that was released was a small whine

My hooves clawing at my throat. I toppled sideways off my chair and hit the ground with a harsh splash. Cold water begun seeping up through my cloak, numbing my right side in an instant.

I’m dreaming, I thought frantically, still struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare. I’m simply choking on my pillow. I’ll just wake up and roll over.

I heard a pony shrieking. I struggled to look up. Glitter Dawn stumbled down the hallway, waddling as if her legs had fallen asleep. Every step she took squished softly, as if the floor was wet mud, not stone. She had an aura around her horn, lighting her face. But it was strange, edges burning out like the bottom of a candle flame.

I tried to cry out. I couldn’t even wheeze a response. Spots were beginning to swim in front of my eyes.

It’s just a memory. I’m not choking. I just remember choking, is all. Roll over. Just roll off the pillow…

Mouth still wide open, face feeling like it was swelling, I shoved off my numb, frozen side, and finally heaved onto my stomach.
It was as if I rolled right into a frozen puddle. Cold water seared down my middle, jabbing thick shoots of pain deep inside my belly, my lungs. My body wobbled slightly, as if the cold shock made it want to gasp for breath.

But of course, no air escaped. None returned to my lungs.

The only part of my body that felt warm was my face. I could feel the blood pumping rapidly behind my eyeballs, swishing in my ears. The world seemed to go hazy, as if it were full of gnats. I distantly registered a wet, scraping sound. A block of stone dropped from the ceiling, splattering like a fat lump of clay.

Just a nightmare…

~Apple-a-Day~

Am I dreaming?

I blinked slowly, trying to think through the clutter in my head. A dribble of black streamed down my snout, plopping heavily to the pavement. Plop plop. I tried to lift a hoof. But it had sunk in the mud… no the street was the mud. And so were the melting walls. And so was the dribbling cloud ceiling…

Other ponies shouted and ran, kicking up black gunk everywhere. Or maybe the black gunk was falling from the sky. Or maybe it was oozing out from all these melting walls. Was it night already? Dear, dear… what was I doing outside at night? I guess I would be taken, just as so many other had before me.

I dropped into the mud, feeling the cold shoot through the old bones, freezing them. Well, I wouldn’t be running on these battered old legs anyway. They almost seemed to sink into the stones… Oh, just idle thoughts from a tired mind, I suppose.

There was a sound in the air, much like the sound a falling tree makes. A long, distance, prolonged roar… Oh, I didn’t think I could remember such a sound. Such a distant memory. I was surprised I remembered it, but I suppose, I couldn’t care less.

Oh, but what was making that sound?

I watched, so slowly, as a black wall scattered the remaining clouds. The wall. The boundary of the city bellowed as it slid sideways through the air, a mile away and a mile tall. Bricks separated in fat chunks, leaving little gaps in the endless wave of dark mud.

Screams started rising up, one by one. Flaring up and collecting together. The whole city was screaming, what was left of it. The light from the sky vanished, what little there was. And still, the wall fell and fell, like a slowly crashing tidal wave.

I wondered if anyone else even knew what a tidal wave was… I sniffled, but the cold seemed to have stopped my breath. I could no longer inhale, nor exhale.

Maybe I was dreaming, because nothing hurt anymore. Not these old bones, not my joints or muscles. I would be taken away, but that didn’t hurt either. All that hurt were the old memories. The only one left who remembered what a tree was, or the tides, or the sun and moon…

Nopony ever believed old Apple-A-Day. Just a little liar who sold treats on a dead little street.

My chin fell into the frigid mud. The collapsing wall roared louder and louder as it fell faster and faster, screams wavering and faltering out of tune.

I think I’d just fall asleep, and hope that I suffocated before the wall came and crushed in my head.

~Leech~

Learning how to not be dead was very important lesson. Maybe even first lesson, after, don’t eat that stuff, and, don’t bathroom there?

But after not being dead for a long, okay time, I never learned to swim. And now?

FWUMP!

I squealed, but without lungs. One part of the liquid ceiling sunk into the mud-sea, and everything, shook, rolling around and around. The eyes on the mud sea blunk, and scattered, and reopened. Looking, where? At floating brother, and two sister sunk under. They weren’t screaming any more, but, I heard howling of adult, and really loud-rumble-roar. Maybe another mom? I hoped her kids weren’t dead, like my mom’s kids were dead.

There was a horn? A mom’s spiral horn, half her head, drifting in the sea. The sea-eyes looked at her eye. None blunk. I tried to breath again, but all my body, stuck in the mud? I tried to kick a leg, but I didn’t have a leg, anymore? I tried to grab, but I didn’t have an arm anymore?

I had a head, though. So I started to cry.

I’m sorry mom. I’m so bad at not being dead.

~Four-Clover~

Through all the chaos, I kept my post, and I watched.

I watched as the rain halted, clouds finally emptied of water. I watched as it began raining something else entirely, the true material that made up our dark sky. I watched as smooze splattered the landscape, coating it. I watched as the clouds slowly spun in the sky, thickening, darkening. I watched as the clouds collected, and as they fell.

I watched as large waterfalls of solidifying smooze spilled downward, and as brackish tornados miles wide formed. Even from a distance, I could hear the black material roaring as it slowly tore through the air. I could hear the deep, cacophonous boom as each waterfall landed in full force, and I see clearly as liquid smooze rolled outward, spilling and flooding the earth as the sky emptied its sorrows, one wound at a time.

I watched as, for the first time in decades, the little sliver of a moon peeked through the chaos. I watched as it vanished entirely, lost as the smooze engulfed town, forest, fields, and all else.

I saw all of this. And, in my mind, I saw so much more. I clearly saw as each and every pony slowly was enveloped in the tidal wave of hate and fear. I could see it rolling through streets. Smashing in doors and windows. Searching for every last pony as it coated Equestria, dragging them under with its pure, tidal force.

“So, you have failed,” I spoke to none in particular. “You three have failed this dying country. Now there will be no more country.”

I stopped, for no reason in particular. And I spoke once more, a single, finite word.

“Fine.”

It was probably the smooze speaking. Having bowled over buildings, devoured crops, swallowed trees, its massive form crawled towards me. Flowing monolithically uphill, either by pure, all-engulfing instinct, or because it was simply attracted by the large quantity of similar nightmares still remaining in my body.

Such a dark, self-replicating material. Numbed the body, numbed the mind. Breeding dark thoughts, preventing any will to fight, corrupting what little petrichor still remained. It was just that simple for mortals to fall into despair. We find hope and reason, or we die, swaddled in our worst emotions.

Our most fatal of flaws. Inescapable, even by those who have obtained immortality.

Even before the wave of despair reached me, the little smooze that had rained around my tomb was collecting. It picked its way towards me, leaving stained trails of purple wherever it collected. The material crept up on my stoop, eyes roving around my ankles. They peeled off the flakes of stone, sending them adrift before attaching themselves to the fur of my fetlock. I felt no cold, as a mortal may. But I did feel my own corruption churn within me. The only physical feeling I had experienced in near six decades.

Such large amounts can display a rudimentary intelligence. Fascinating, but unsurprising. There were several theories circulating that magic itself was the source of all intelligence, or that intelligence is what creates magic. Though I do sometimes wonder if additional discoveries had been made in my many decades of absence. If not here, then perhaps by the Zebras… certainly their God-King is not plagued by such violent mood swings as ours are.

“But, still,” I said aloud, “Fine.”

Strange that I should not care… but I did not care. I didn’t. And I doubted it was because of the smooze so avidly climbing up my chipped legs.

It was quite simple, really.

I did not care that our system of government had completely and utterly failed us.

I did not care that it meant the death of hundred of thousands.

I did not care that this might mean the extinction of all pony kind.

We simply were not meant to be happy. Purity of heart and clarity of goal meant nothing anymore.

This entire country was a farce, a pipe dream. All our rules and religion were built based on suppositions, constructed to preach the practice of unity between races and harmony with nature. We tried to correct the mistakes of the past, and submitted ourselves to the will of six rocks.

My father gambled on a better future, and he, we, all lost.

It was wrong of us to trust six crystals made of wild magic.

We deserved to be drowned out by the pain and hatred we ourselves instilled.

For our hubris, we, I, deserve this justice.

The tide had come in. Smooze rolled over the peak of the hill and washed around me. Even as it drained into my tomb, even as it continued to push up the slope of the hills, it would certainly not forget to collect me unto itself.

Instantly, the smooze soaked through my cloak. It seeped down the broken blunts of my wings. It matted the fur of my long-crumbled cutie mark, and, with an almost eager push from the black tides, it seeped back upwards. Soon, it was in my stringy mane, surrounding the stump of my broken horn.

I blinked, and felt the cold as it washed over down my face, collecting flakes of stone as it went. I could feel it between my few remaining follicles of fur, soaking through the meager façade of skin. My rotten insides rose to meet it, and the identical materials bled together. Corruption of one blending with corruption of many. Smooze mixing with smooze.

My sovereign body may have contained enough darkness to flood a city, but it was nothing compared to the nightmare currently flooding the country. My awareness extended, even as it was being drained from my skin-like sack and overwritten. I was just one body in a collection of millions. A jug of water tossed into the open sea. How long would I be able to determine what was myself, and what was not?

Of course…

The same was happening to that fool.

I did not know if I sensed it now, or if I simply predicted his fate with my remaining individuality. He, I, and perhaps even the cold remains of the others. Stripped of our containers, denied our individual thoughts, we would become the largest contributors to this sea of corrupted magic. Perhaps we might even be the final nail in this country’s coffin.

Idiot dog breeder. I suppose such a brute-force solution was all a Dirt Pony like him could manage.

I tried to take a breath, perhaps to taste the corrupted air of a fallen country one last time. But of course, I had no lungs, nor any organs to speak of. The air rolled around the back of my mouth, confused, and exited as a dusty puff of stone as I closed my snout, utterly denying my last mortal desire.

~Butterfly Bright~

I’ve finally found a way to stop everything from hurting, Pale.

I’ve finally found a way to kill myself.

Finally.

Next Chapter: LXXVI : The Shattered Sky Estimated time remaining: 44 Minutes
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