Chapter Twelve – A thousand centuries of rest

Skywing had since long gone as Pasta told her to, but he just sat down and started to cry out of desperation. He dug a little hole in the clouds, went in and covered it back up. He closed his eyes.

He tried to sleep for the night. Trying to forget about what happened. He looked down at his hooves and saw dry blood on them, he saw marks from the arrows everywhere and he put his head down, desperately.

"Why am I not like the rest of them?!" he asked to himself. "Why did I have to be different?"

He was very tired, he slowly fell asleep and dreamed about the times in which he was talking to Skywing.

Pasta tried to wake up, but he merely couldn't. He was very tired, in fact he couldn't even stand up. He couldn't open his eyes. And he fell asleep once more.

He was only dreaming at this point. He couldn't wake up nor interact with his own body.

TWO HUNDRED TWENTY THOUSAND (220,000) YEARS LATER

Pasta's eyes rolled a little, then he was finally able to force them open. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The clouds he was in were now very dark and they looked very dead. He kicked open the top and looked around. It looked terrifying.

The part he was now in was entirely dead. Clouds had become ashes and houses were destroyed a-whole.

"What happened to this place?" he thought.

"Is anybody out there?!" he shouted as much as he could.

Nobody could hear him. He was shouting again and again to find somepony still alive in that cloudy ruins of darkness. He dug down and tried to escape to the ground, after digging out flying ashes, he saw the burnt grassy fields of earth.

"What happened to this place?" he thought. The sun was coming up and it was morning.

He looked over a distance, trying to see somewhere still left. He saw one last place from very, very far away. It was a castle. It was very luxury. And there was a sign on a mountain near it which said:

WELCOME TO CANTERLOT

"I must check that place out." thought Pasta.

He flought up towards the large castle and saw some guards down below.

"Hey, there are other ponies alive!" thought Pasta.

He flought down and was immediately a target for swords.

"Halt!" shouted one of the guards. "What's the purpose of your visit?"

"Hello, I come from a distant place." said Pasta. "I'm really thankful to see there are others left alive."

"Hooves up!" said the guard. "Cuff this intruder!"

"Okay, fine." said Pasta.

"Her highness, Princess Celestia must see this inglorious outsider." said the guard.

"Her what?" said Pasta. "Princess what? What're you talking about?"

Pasta tried to restrain from his cuffs, but he saw too quickly that most of his injuries were infested with parasites and he felt weak too.

"Your highness, we saw this outsider reaching into our limits." said the guard.

"Do I hear correctly?" said Celestia. "What are you doing here? Tell me."

"So, I came from the clouds, I'm just looking for others left alive." said Pasta. "That's all I gotta say. Hold on, you have.. wings and a horn? You're an alicorn?"

"Wait, how do you know?" asked Celestia.

"You're just like me!" said Pasta, breaking his wings open.

"Hang on, are those.. real?" asked Celestia, coming closer to check on his wings.

"Young princess, I have no intention of scaring you, although I must ask, what year is it?" said Pasta.

"That is your highness to you." said Celestia. "And we're at the end of year 250,000 since these lands have existed."

Pasta froze in place, what was she talking about?

"That.. means.." Pasta couldn't let out his words. "I am, over 200 thousand years old. When did all this time pass?"

"You are what?" said Celestia. "Lock this pony up in the dungeon, I'll ask more to him later."

"Wait!" said Pasta. "Please help me. I had met a pony just like me! All those years ago! Her name was Skywing. Do you have any idea where she is?"

"Skywing?" said Celestia. "She's my adopted daughter."

"No, no!" shouted Pasta as he was being taken to the dungeons.

"Her highness, Princess Celestia will decide what to do with him later, throw him in this cage." said one of the guards.

As Pasta shouted "I'm innocent! I haven't done anything wrong!", the guards walked away, chatting to themselves.

"What have I done by coming here?" he thought to himself. "If Skywing is in that princess's possesion.."

He didn't want to think about it. His eyes filled up with tears. He sat down on a corner, infested with rats and cried. He cried a lot, more than he ever had in his entire life.

He heard hoofsteps approaching his cage. And he turned around, only to see Celestia, standing in front of him.

"What do you want?" asked Pasta. "Haven't you caused enough pain to me?"

"Look, Skywing told me she's still young and she has no friends." said Celestia. "Are you sure you had a friend like her?"

"She was a blackish pony, she was an alicorn just like me." said Pasta. "She was the daughter of the royal family of the pegasi."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Celestia. "I asked her if she knew anypony with the name of Pasta and she just shaked her head and said 'No.'"

"Are you joking or something?" said Pasta. "If that's Skywing, there's no way she's forgotten me. I promised her I would find her all those years ago!"

"Look, I'm not interested in what you have to say next, if it's something useful then don't waste my time and say it." said Celestia.

"Can I.. see her?" asked Pasta.

"Huh?" said Celestia. "Obviously not. You're an outsider, my answer will always be no, try to change it, you can't."

"Fine, but you'll regret it." said Pasta.

"I don't see how but sure." said Celestia, walking away.

Pasta looked around in his surroundings. The only thing he was seeing was rocks.

"Hang on, I'm stupid!" said Pasta. "I still have my magic."

He lit up his horn and broke his hoofcuffs. Then he one by one blasted out all of the metal bars. He had escaped it. He thought it was simple, although he had to be stealthy because of the guards.

He sneaked from the entrance and saw about 20 guards standing there.

He prepared himself, his hooves and legs, and ran as fast as he could, guards immediately went on his tail. They were chasing him in the hall.

"Maybe you'll like some of this! " said Pasta, blowing out a beam from his horn which took out 4 of the guards.

He turned to the next hallway and continued running with the guards behind him. He lit up his horn and blasted on the hinges of a door, then he used his magic to throw the door to the guards behind him. More of them got taken out.

In the final hallway, Celestia was returning to her throne, some unicorn guards over there saw him and blasted at him all at once. He ended up at Celestia's hoof.

"Okay, that really hurt." said Pasta, not being able to seperate his face from the floor.

"You again?" said Celestia. "How did you escape?"

"It was easy, pay more attention next time." said Pasta.

Celestia raised her hoof and brought it down right on Pasta really quickly.

"Ow!" said Pasta. "I just wanted to see Skywing."

"Nope." said Celestia."

"Please, I haven't seen her in centuries." said Pasta.

"Oh my.. fine!" said Celestia. "All of you, go up there and keep watch on him. Don't let him hurt my daughter."

"Yes, your highness." said all the guards.

"Be faster, outsider." said a guard, pushing him forward.

"Okay, okay!" said Pasta. "You guys treat all your guests like this?"

"Yes we do." said the guard. "Got any questions? You better not have any."

He saw a door, he raised his hoof, and turned the handle, a very bright and highly detailed room was in front of him.

He couldn't see anything of the shine, but after walking in, a familiar face appeared.

"Skywing?" said Pasta.

"Who are you?" asked Skywing. "Why did you come here?"

"Don't you remember me?" said Pasta. "I'm Pasta."

"Look, I don't know you." said Skywing. "I don't even know why you came here."

"Please stop acting like this." said Pasta.

"Hey, the princess will act however she wants to, you don't get to decide." said the guard.

"Look, I said I don't know you!" shouted Skywing.

To be continued...