“Hey, wait up!”

The voice belonging to the stallion with the rainbow mane reached Lilly’s ears through the howling wind as she quickly trotted through Ashcraft towards her destination. Despite it being midday the settlement was almost empty, as usual. Most of the ponies living here were either working or out hunting, and the few children they had didn’t do much at all. Loitered might be a good word for it. They just didn’t care about anything anymore.

She didn’t answer the stallion’s call and didn’t slow down her pace. The sound of snow being pressed down grew as he trotted up next to her without saying a word. Lilly ignored him as much as she could, but finally she couldn’t do it anymore and against her own judgment she turned her head to look at him. Those oddly colored eyes met hers, and for a split second she felt as if something about him was... Familiar.

“Mind telling me your name?” The stallion asked.

“Lilith.” She replied. “But most ponies call me Lilly.” She just wanted him to leave her alone as quickly as possible, and thought that he would if she just answered his questions.

“I’m Willow.” He said back to her. “Quite fitting, I’d say.”

Lilly was about to ask him why, but got her answer the moment she looked closer at him, noticing a few things about his body that she’d missed at the inn. She just now realized he wasn’t a regular earth pony; he was in fact a Pegasus. But his wings didn’t look like any other she’d seen; they were crooked and bent in ways that almost made her cringe as she imagined the pain they most likely caused him.

Willow noticed the looks she gave him, and cleared his throat before speaking up again. “Deformed at birth. Least, that’s what my father said. I’ll never be able to fly, it seems.”

Lilly hesitated a few seconds. “My… my horn…” She spoke slowly, thinking carefully about each new word she uttered. “It doesn’t… work. Not that I was born that way, but…”

“I know what you’re talking about.” Willow replied calmly. “The Great Fade?”

Lilly nodded. “I was lucky, I guess…”

The Great Fade. A time of despair and death for all of Equestria. Following the death of their rulers, the equine of the land was thrown into a civil war of chaos, in which the unicorns got blamed for the fall of the Lunar Republic.

Claims were made that it was their magic that caused Luna and Dust to pass so abruptly, their recklessness. Magic was used in ever thing, every simple act was carried out by it, and it made them lazy and disrespectful towards it. They abused their natural power, and for this the entire world was punished.

“What they did was a terrible thing.” Willow whispered. “Some say the Fade was our world’s darkest moment, far beyond everything else. Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changelings, the war... nothing compared to it.”

Unicorns had been hunted down and slain like dogs, nopony ever giving a single thought about their life’s and families. They gave themselves the right to torment and kill every living creature born with a magic horn, and anypony trying to protect them.

“Because there wasn’t a ‘real’ enemy?” Lilly asked him.

They gave themselves the right to be gods, with complete power over life and death, and soon these imaginary and arrogant powers could sustain themselves no longer. On a cold autumn morning as specks of snow had begun to color the land in white, thousands upon thousands marched upon Canterlot and the high-end society.

What followed was a bloodbath that lasted for weeks. The bodies of Unicorns, Pegasi and earth ponies littered the streets of the once glistening white city, dried and fresh blood covering its beautiful buildings, sprayed across broken windows and shattered doors. All kinds of furniture had been thrown out of ponies homes, only to be reduced to ashes by the trampling masses.

Public executions of whole families where carried out, accompanied by the wailing cries of their loved ones. There was nothing else to do, anypony trying to help the unicorns was cut down immediately and left to rot.

Stallions, mares, foals; no discrimination could be found. They all perished under the mighty blades of the uprising that eventually came to call themselves “The true believers”.

“Yup. I’ll never understand how any living being can be driven into such madness. To almost drive the unicorns into extinction, and then hide behind their ‘patriotism’… I’ll tell you, the things I saw them do… there was nothing patriotic there, just hate and anger.”

After months of senseless bloodshed and unspeakable acts of violence, the believers had taken complete control of Canterlot. The ones opposing them either died or fled the city, while some chose to join their ranks in what they believed to be a glorious rebellion, destined to rid Equestria of Unicorns once and for all, and in doing so they would atone for their sins and the curse on their land would finally be lifted.

They marched on the castle, killing everything in their path. The court and what was left of the royal family put up strong resistance, refusing to bow down and surrender their castle. But not even them could hold out against the tide of death for long, and the royal bloodline broke as every member of the family was slain without remorse.

Their heads where placed upon spikes outside the castle gates, and the blood from their severed necks colored the otherwise white marble stairs in a river of purest crimson.

Prince Blueblood, elected as new temporary ruler of Equestria until an heir could be produced, was placed at the front of these rows, his entire body mutilated and torn apart, strung up on poles for all the world to see.

To further enhance their message, the believers removed the prince’s genitalia and nailed it stuck to the castle gate.

But despite this, despite his body being broken into pieces; no blue blood could be found within his veins.

Lilly and Willow walked on in silence through the snow. Lilly really didn’t want to talk about the Fade; it brought back memories too painful for her to handle, and she found herself crying once again. She didn’t know whether or not Willow saw it, and it didn’t matter; the air was so cold her tears froze before they left her cheeks. She tried to focus on something else, and looked around her for anything that could take her mind of... certain events.

Nothing interesting caught her eye, and she instead focused on looking straight ahead and nowhere else. Hopefully, they would reach the place she was headed to, and she really didn’t care if he found out about it or not.

“How did you survive?” Willow’s voice broke the silence between them. “If you don’t mind me asking...”

Again, the memories came back to her, slicing into her like a knife. She couldn’t stand it, and without realizing what she said, she let it all out. “I once saw a group of stallion’s gang up on a unicorn. They broke her horn and raped her with it. And laughed at her pain and humiliation. Another stallion tried to stop them, tried to help her. They killed him. Beat him up until he wasn’t moving anymore, and then they continued with the mare. They finally ended her suffering by strangling her.”

Willow’s face had gone pale as he listened. “Why are you telling me this…?” He asked.

“I was hiding inside a small shed close by, together with…” She went silent for a few seconds, and then she continued. “When they were done and about to leave, one of them took a piss on the body of the stallion. I didn’t come out of hiding until almost an hour later.”

“Who were they?” Willow wondered.

“My parents.” Lilly said bluntly.

“I’m sorry, I…” Willow began, but Lilly interrupted him.

“It’s fine.” She said. “It happened a long time ago, and there’s no way of changing what happened. That’s just the way life is like now, right?”

“I guess…” The stallion responded. “Equestria is a bleak place nowadays.”

“Bleak and broken.”

They passed her own shabby little shed. It wasn’t much to look at, just a pile of metal like all the other buildings, but at least it was a place to call home. Round the back of it and past the house of her neighbors, she saw the place she was headed for. A small opening in the mountain wall surrounding the settlement, protruding outwards like a circle with a doorway in the middle. Ice has formed around it, almost creating the image of a giant maw with razor sharp teeth.

Lilly stepped right through the cold teeth, and found herself in what she herself saw as the only sanctuary left in Equestria. Behind her Willow stepped inside as well, coming to a stop next to her. He observed the scene in front of them in silence, as Lilly removed the Stetson off of the top of her head. Opposite of them, lined with the mountain wall, several spikes of ice has been molded into strange shapes, some of them even bent into curves.

Ranging from straight spikes at both ends, the shape of them shifted towards the middle where a few of them had been bent around in such a manner that they formed a partial vortex around a small pillar of stone. Lilly stepped forward without paying any attention to Willow whom stood perplexed at the sight before him. She placed the Stetson down on the small pillar, and it fit perfectly on top of it, like it had been molded for that single purpose.

“Did you do all of this?” Willow whispered behind her back as she sat down on her haunches in the cold snow and lowered her head with closed eyes.

She nodded slowly. “My magic may be weak, but not too weak for something like this. Besides, this is the least I can do for her…”

“You really cared for her.” Willow stated, probably more to himself than to Lilly. After a few moments of silence, she felt him sit himself down on her right side. “What happened to her?” He whispered.

“… Why should I tell you?” Lilly answered. “I don’t even know you.” But she already knew the answer to her question, it was obvious why she should tell him. Even though he hadn’t said anything about his past or family, she understood. Especially once she saw his cutie mark in the corner of her eye. A faded green apple, broken down the middle in a jagged line.

“She was the sister of my father.” Willow responded. “I think I have the right to know.”

Lilly nodded in silence before she turned her head to look at him. He didn’t look back; his eyes where fixed on the hat in front of them. The wind tugged on his mane, and it almost shimmered as it moved, the colors of the rainbow swirling around his face. She finally understood what he meant when he said his name was fitting. The bleak colors of his mane, his dark coat, deformed wings and faded cutie mark.

If all of these things where taken out of context and blown to life, they would all have been distinct characteristics in their own way, but put together in such a fashion as this, they truly did remind her of a willow. A sad apparition, lonely and ever quiet, swaying slightly as the breeze grabbed its thin branches.

“It was five years ago…” She began quietly. “Four years after the death of my parents. Even though she was just a few years older than me, she pretty much became a big sister to me after they died. We lived together, and she took care of me…”

“How… how did she die…?” Willow whispered cautiously.

Lilly looked at the hat on the pillar in front of them, and the tiny hole on its left side.

“She didn’t suffer.” She whispered in response.