Title:           Dashing Dashites Die
Author:          Anonymous
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/8HBCE98h
First Edit:      Saturday 13th of February 2016 08:06:36 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Saturday 13th of February 2016 08:06:36 AM CDT

    I woke one night to a booming rumble. My shack trembled and bucked, the tin roof rattling. My first thought was that a megaspell had gone off nearby, and in my groggy stupor I rushed out the door to see what new fresh hell the Zebras had made. A flash passed above me, some great ring of magic arced across the sky. Before I could follow it, another great crack came out, and drove me to my knees, ears clutched in agony. When it passed I looked up to one of the most amazing sights in my life, the sky
The clouds, those great grey masses that had floated in the sky for centuries, were gone. I laid there, staring, my brain barely processing the mental magnitude of what had just happened. What was still happening I realized as more of the acentric arcs cast forward from a single point, clouds roiling and boiling away in their passing. The rumbles continued, this time quieter, but more frequent. The ground trembled beneath my feet, gently but unmistakably. I was an earth pony, I knew what the ground spoke when it moved, but this, this was in pain, agony.
    I rushed to get up to my roof, crates haphazardly thrown together as a set of stairs, and more put on top of the tin. It wasn’t much, but now I could see beyond the horizon, to the red sultry stain of Fillydelphia and the grand whiteness of Manehattan. Lights, no not lights, the very embodiment of Celestia was shown once more in her infernal glory. The goddess had returned, her very presence a shattering crescendo to the heavens. I leapt off the roof, plants crushed in my passing, but I cared not. I had to get my binoculars, I needed to see the princess.
    Returning to the roof, I looked at Manehattan, to Tenpony where her radiance was coming from. It was pure, so pure and clean, the world seemed better in its passing. I looked back to Fillydelphia, where I had seen the green rings come from, where Celestia’s light was scouring the ground, where the earth bucked and screamed in an agony I had never known, but she had once long ago. The day world ended, she had felt this, far away when the Zebras ceased.
I watched, dazzled by the flashes of Sun made manifest before me, as Fillydelphia blossomed in its own lesser lights. Red, green, yellow, white, all so many bright and spots of light as explosions sundered the ground and tore the sky. War, war had once more returned to Equestria. Celestia made war, and she was scouring the bastard Red Eye as her first act. Heil to the fucking Princess and her glory.
    Looking around, something grew on me, an uncomfortable feeling that something was amiss. I twisted and turned, looking for a pony to ask, before I realized. They were all gone. The streets had emptied, the homes lay barren, and the walls unguarded. What the hell had just happened? They were all gone as one, fleeing from what? I was worried, panicing now. What had I missed?
I had a few moments to ponder this before there was a new flash in the clouds. Not with the clouds, but something coursing through them, the same sight I had seen earlier, but now I could tell more powerful. And I saw it, something that I could only describe as awe inducing as I cringed and huddled on my roof, terrified beyond wit. The cloud layer, the gloom I had known my whole life, broke, receding across Equestria. A series of pulses from the great white towers echoed and burst forth, pushing the cloud away like an invisible pegasus. In that moment I was ready. Celestia had come, she was here to punish the pegasi for their crimes, to bring us home with her. I looked up, the glow of the sun, her sun coming down to the ground. I was ready, I just wanted to be with her majesty as I reached a hoof out in supplication.
    The next thing I knew I was on my back under the crates I had stacked, shaking and sore. The air was thick with dust, the sun obscured just as it had been shown. My house, no my town, was ravaged by some great wind. Shacks had been cast down, their roofs sticking and flicking madly in the wall of their neighbor, others were just gone. Now, now it did really seem like a balefire bomb had gone off. But still, flashes of light came from Fillydelphia, great columns pulsing in time with Manehattan. Whatever had happened, the fighting was still going on.
    Unsteadily I got my hooves back under me and went to my door, my shack somewhat more intact from the plants I had cultivated around it. I could hear noise from inside, a howl as I finally got the door open only to drop off to an excited whimper. My pet ursa minor hobbled over to me, her left side bearing a heavy bruise from where the wall had canted in and a support had fallen on her. I just cried and hugged her tight, letting her nuzzle and lick at me as she sought comfort. I knew that it wasn’t the best thing for me right now, but those moments meant all the world to me, for I dearly believed they were my last on it.
I packed then, under the cover of darkness, all the ponies I knew still gone to some place I could only hope was safe. It was slow going, most of my belongings were now scattered about, and there was no good place to hang a light from with the roof damaged. In the morning I set out to leave in a hurry, not waiting to see who returned. The sky was clear, blue and wide, the first I had seen of it in a long time. I didn’t dwell on it long, now I was afraid, worried. Ursala kept close to me as I left through a section of destroyed wall, sensing something about me was off.
    That barrier, the one that had kept pegasi and us separate for so long was gone now. Soon they would see what it was like down here, what many had toiled and scratched a living out under. Some might even come down, looking to make amends perhaps, but I imagined they would stay sheltered for a while, looking for whatever spot most reminded them of the luxury they had up there. I knew they would seek me out, help me rebuild my shanty into something big enough to stay, to be in the green place I had made.
For this, I was afraid, oh so terribly afraid after I had learned what had happened. It had been so hard to live in the twilight, to pull some life from the blasted earth we had been cursed with. No no, not cursed, there was no princesses anymore, no great magic like that. It was something we had brought upon ourselves, something we did and deserved for our choices. Choices that we had all made, some darker than others. And just like those choices made centuries ago had haunted us, so too would mine.
    Pegasi would come down, curious to how I had grown crops so well. Neighbors would seek an answer in this moment to their long held befuddlement that I alone had mastered the earth. Questions, questions I couldn’t answer. Soon my inability would lead to ire, hatred as they wanted their stars damned answer at last. Oh I knew what they would do in that moment. They’d come, shovel in mouth, horns would be glowing as they would get to the bottom of how my orchards had grown so well, always made such sweet apples. And they’d break that soil, tearing it up as they went. I could only hope I was long gone when they found the bodies. All those Dashites I had taken advantage of and murdered in their darkest moment. In my zeal I had seen them as traitors, marked for death at my hoof. Now I knew what lay beyond the darkened mirror, that I was the monster.