Post by Virga on Nov 14, 2012 10:38:41 GMT -5
Outdated. Virga described himself this way to Firefly when he saw her for the first time in weeks. A relic of a dead age revived, this he thought of himself. Though the times bright and confidence in friendship restored, other things troubled the dark pegasus. It started two days earlier just before the great Rumbastion visited Princess Celestia, the crystalline chipping of his hooves. Since then he wore wraps. His eyes, they too glazed and polished in ways unnatural.
He never was a pony of sciences, but magics he knew well even if he couldn't use them. Pegasi had their brand, but could it be truthfully called magic? Yes, and no. Virga busied himself in one of the darker palace wings at a dusty old table, a few candles to light his work. Across that weathered surface he spread numerous scrolls and books written in script so ancient that most who looked upon it wouldn't understand. This was his language, long dead and only heard with the foulest incantations in the modern day.
Somepony wrote painfully small her details on chaos and disorder that Virga borrowed a jeweler's eyepiece. A sip of Thinking Pony's Tea(™), he strained less trying to understand what the ancient unicorn had written. Next to that script, he had spread a particular scroll that did not originate from the Palace, or Equestria for that matter. Mystery abound, some solved and others not so much. Upon the Empire's restoration he recalled the vault. Properly it was The Vault, but only to ponies who knew, and it was not in one place.
He told Celestia he needed rest that day when he sauntered from the throne room. Truth, he flew. Virga flew to a hidden place in the north for he was strong despite weakness. It took breaking the boom barrier twice, nearly crashing, and flying with unwanted weight. Neighagra Falls. One part of The Vault 'he' hid there underneath the falls. The next night he spent ferrying the contents to his home atop Mt. Everfree. Thus the origin of this very scroll.
An elderly alicorn wrote it, his name Umbello--a pony of sciomancy. Virga's wings touched the stone floor as he gazed at the stained glass window through which faint moonlight glistened. It was an old, forgotten scene of Princess Luna and told of the days she gleefully rose the moon prior to contempt and the rise of Nightmare Moon. Those were the days when all things were in order. Even now, they were not. Virga's wings dropped lower, sweeping centuries of dust aside.
Just as Luna's happiness withered in bygone days, Virga realized a single, agonizing truth that eventually he'd have to tell them. All of them.
When Peddiga, the first and only true fangirl-become-servant of a pony, nudged Virga in that dark corridor he responded with a shattered spirit. Come closer, little pony, into my wing. Memories live forever. The training wraps Rainbow Dash gave him so long ago fell from his hooves. Peddiga whimpered and solemnly made to rewrap his diminished hooves.
"Hush now," he whispered. "Let my friends…" That realization hit him in the heart. Friends. For the first time since the deaths of his team, son, and wife, he had true friends here in Equestria. "Let my friends revel in bliss after that agony. I need not trouble them."
"What of Firefly?" Peddiga asked as she tied off the wraps.
"I will speak with Luna at an appropriate time," he said. "I may not be able to tell Firefly face to face; this may undo her more than it undoes me."
The two pegasi gazed on that stained-glass window. This was the beginning of the end.
"You'll try. Won't you?"
"Yes."