//------------------------------// // 5 // Story: Golden Prose // by Field //------------------------------// Golden Prose and I ran until the burning in our chests was more than we could stand. I’d looked over my shoulder nearly every step of the way trying to see if we were being pursued, but she mare ahead of me hadn’t looked back once. I had followed her, assuming that she knew where she was heading. Only after we stopped and she asked me where we were did I know that we were up a creek without a paddle. “Why didn’t you stop sooner if you didn’t know where you were going?!” I tried my best to keep my frustration down to a dull roar. The copse of fruit trees we had taken shelter in were far from an ideal hiding spot, but the tall grass and weeds seemed to indicate this part of the orchard was not tended and therefore most likely out of season. “You could have stopped me anytime too you know!” Golden Prose hissed back, sprawled out on her stomach on the grass. “That guard was crazy! He was trying to put you down like a sick dog and you just left that DJ there by herself with him!” I felt a twinge of guilt in my already aching chest. Vinyl Scratch had told me to leave her behind but that didn’t necessarily mean she was okay. The mare had a lot of bravado but I didn’t know how much of it she could back up. “That pegasus deputy was there with them too, I’m sure he made sure the guard didn’t do anything else crazy.” In my mind I could the guard firing off his magic wildly as Vinyl Scratch struck the flare in his face. What if he’d managed to score a lucky shot before she could hit the deck? “I’m more worried about what the guard was doing here in the first place. He said he was investigating the disappearance of Hardtack, but I overheard the deputy earlier saying that even the locals hadn’t figured out he was missing until this morning. The royal guard couldn’t have known about it so soon, and even if they did why are they so interested in the disappearance of a diner cook?” More questions were piling up and now shadow ponies weren’t the only thing trying to kill me. My guilty conscience was going to be the death of me. I was really starting to regret my decision not to get on a train out of town last night. A flush-up of birds a fair ways off caught my attention and we both pressed ourselves into the grass. Perched in one of the upper branches of a tree near the source of the birds was a uniformed pegasus with a pair of binoculars. It didn’t look like Deputy Ironbars, but it must have been one of the other officers in his department. “Mossy, come with me, we can’t stay here.” Golden Prose whispered harshly, creeping through the tall grass farther into the orchard. She was going to get us more lost, but that still seemed like a better option than having a sheriff’s deputy bring us back to town where that royal guard could get at us. The dilapidated tool shed we took refuge in didn’t look like it had been touched for years. The windows had yellowed to the point where anyone outside would be hard pressed to see any movement inside. That combined with the creeping kudzu that lay over the building like a blanket made it an ideal hiding spot for the aerial patrols. Golden Prose busied herself rigging her Maglites into the straps on her saddlebags in the same manner I had set up mine. I poked around the shed just to see what I could find. The way things were going I half expected another manuscript page to turn up inside some old toolbox that hadn’t been opened in years. “I don’t suppose you were able to get that second gun, were you?” I asked, perking up at the thought. Things had happened so quickly that I’d almost forgotten to see if the mare had gotten anything useful while I had been traipsing around town with Vinyl Scratch. Frowning as she did so, Golden Prose shook her head and opened her saddlebag. “Celebrity influence couldn’t get me past the waiting period. News about Jack spread pretty quickly so the shopkeeper was too on edge to let me get away with anything. But I did manage to get these…” From her bags she levitated out a single box of ammunition for the revolver, which she set down next to herself. Apparently she intended to keep the gun. Next from the bag she revealed three small cylindrical objects that I almost didn’t recognize at first. She dropped them into my lap and I picked one up between my hooves. “Flares for the flare gun!” My delight was palpable as I pulled the flare gun from my saddlebag to double-check that these rounds did indeed fit into my particular model. “Why only three though? Who knows how many more of those shadow things are in Everfree.” “Ponyville is a small town.” Golden Prose replied, finally emptying the spent casings from the revolver and loading in live ammunition. “Ponies out here don’t really have a need for those kinds of things. You’re lucky the shopkeeper even had those three. They weren’t even in the shop front, he just happened to have them loose in the back from a demonstration.” That was a fair enough explanation. I was still used to life in Baltimare, where you could find almost anything you wanted within a relatively short walk. It surprised me that a cosmopolitan pony like Golden Prose had been so accepting of that fact much more readily than me. It did raise one question though. “Just buying these few things couldn’t have taken you long at all, but you didn’t get back to the house until way after me. What were you doing the rest of the time?” A guilty look shot across Golden Prose’s face and her features tensed. At this point I couldn’t tell if she was feeling the guilt because I had noticed she’d been doing something she probably shouldn’t, or that she herself hadn’t stopped to think of the consequence of her dilly dallying. “I… I stopped by the town’s library before I even went to the gun shop.” She revealed, pulling that damned Shining Dawn book from her bag again. “I wanted to ask the librarian if she had ever heard of Shining Dawn before and to find out if they had any more of his or her books.” “And how did that go?” The librarian made it seem like she knew everything about everything but she had still never heard of Shining Dawn. There were no records of any books by that pony ever being kept in the library either. She actually wanted to keep the book and study it… I didn’t let her.” By now I was getting frustrated. I knew the mare was an author, so it stood to reason that she would have a fairly deep interest in reading, but this was getting ridiculous. We had lost half the day because she’d been too busy reading to wake me up. That had been on me too for not setting an alarm of some sort to wake myself up, but the library had been a senseless trip. If she had gotten back to the house sooner we could have left before the guard arrived; Vinyl Scratch wouldn’t have had to stay behind. Golden Prose was definitely not acting like a mother missing her colt today. “What is that damned book even about? What could possibly be so important about it if no one has ever even heard of this pony?” I snapped, lashing out to snatch the book away from her without success. “They were probably just some hack. Simple as that.” “You of all ponies would appreciate this book, Mossy.” She snapped back defensively. “It’s about a troubled stallion that bucks up his entire life with one grand mistake.” My jaw dropped and I couldn’t find proper words to respond. She had known about Hayseed Swamp after all! How stupid I had been to think she really didn’t know about me. “I feel a certain kinship with this writer, whoever they are.” Golden Prose continued, seemingly oblivious to the dagger she had stuck into my back. “I feel like this is something I would have written back when I was just starting my career.” I’d had enough. I yanked my Shining Dawn book out from my saddlebag and slammed it down on the floor in front of her. If she wanted to wax nostalgic until the sun went down then she could do just that. I was going to do what we’d set out to do in the first place; find her colt. Dusk had arrived sooner than I expected. If the pegasi were still in the air it was now too dark for them to easily spot us on the edge of the orchard tree line. I didn’t have my flashlights on yet; I could still see well enough and I wanted to conserve my batteries now that I knew they would have to last me all the way through the night. Golden Prose trailed several yards behind me. We hadn’t spoken since I had stormed out of the tool shed. As I’d expected she had snatched up the copy of In Her Dreams to Prevail like it had been a lifesaver in a stormy sea. A stiff breeze blew through the orchard, rustling branches of the fruitless trees. Underneath the sound of the branches I thought I heard another chattering like the sound of cicadas in the distance. It was much quieter than it had been the night before, but it was definitely there. I heard Golden Prose gasp and I spun on my hooves to face whatever it was she had seen. Deeper in the orchard under a cluster of three apple trees was a pony. The densely growing trees cast a shadow darker than the surround ground. The darkness seemed to pulse in sync with the pony’s raspy breathing as he peered out from behind the center tree. He had what looked to be a corn knife dangling loosely from his mouth. We watched the pony for about fifteen seconds, though it felt like an eternity. The Hardtack shadow had been on us almost immediately after appearing. This one seemed to linger. “I don’t think it can leave the shadows until it gets darker!” I hissed, somehow afraid that the shadow pony might hear me. “We need to make a break for the open fields where there won’t be any big shadows for at least a little while longer.” Golden Prose grunted in agreement as she clicked on her flashlights. She was apparently not as worried about remaining hidden from any remaining deputies as I was. We burst into a gallop away from the tree line and down the road that separated the orchard from adjacent open farmland. I was still unwilling to use my lights, but I did reach into my saddlebag and tuck one of my emergency flares into my vest for easy access as I ran. The night air had been alive with the sound of frogs, crickets, and other animals performing their usual nocturnal chorus, but as we reached the edge of the first field the sound of silence was all we heard. Then came the sound of cicadas again. It started off low, but gradually increased in bass and volume until it sounded like a swarm of dragons was descending. I realized that this was a sound I had heard before. I had been at a weather pegasus show outside of Baltimare; a flight team had been demonstrating their techniques for weather manipulation. Their grand finale had been a small scale demonstration of the tornado they used to bring water from ground level up into Cloudsdale. The sound I heard now was identical, only far from small scale. On the dark horizon the black tornado was barely visible but the debris it tossed around were more than enough proof that it was there. Shadows swirled around it, tossing trees from the orchard aside like they were toothpicks. Along the edge of the field I suddenly became aware of several more shadow ponies, including the one we had supposedly left behind in the orchard. I clicked on my flashlights and brandished my emergency flare, ready to toast the first one brave enough to take a swing at me. “Moss!” Golden Prose shouted and took off past me into the field. I looked back in the direction she had come from only to see that the shadow tornado had shifted direction toward us. The shadow ponies were keeping us in the open field where there was no cover from the behemoth! I scrambled after the mare, unsure how far we would get before the storm bore down on us. Even if I felt brave enough to turn and take a shot at it with the flare gun the twister had picked up enough apple trees and farm equipment to create what basically amounted to a shield of debris. That’s when everything really went to hell. The ground shuddered violently beneath my hooves and I lost my balance. My front hooves went out from under me and I tumbled head first into the dirt just in time to see the ground in front of me swallow up Golden Prose. The mare shrieked as she tumbled down into the dark abyss below. “GOLDEN PROSE!” The chasm now in front of me was too wide to avoid, but that didn’t matter. I was going down after her. The flare I’d been carrying now lay in front of me and I quickly scooped it up, ignited it, and pitched the blazing red beacon down the hole. Before I could take the plunge after it I felt a hoof stomp down on my tail. Every one of the shadow ponies from the edges of the field had now advanced in on me. The cane knife wielding pony had been the quickest. He stood on my tail and thrust downward with the large blade, clipping my left flank as I frantically rolled and twisted to avoid it The pain was intense, both from the bleeding wound on my flank and the wrenching twist of my tail. Before he could bring the knife down again I yanked one of my flashlights out of the saddlebag straps and aimed the beam directly into the shadow pony’s face. The abomination hissed and flailed backwards trying to cover its face with its hooves. With my tail now free I was on my hooves in a flash. I quickly grabbed two more flares from my saddlebags and jammed them into my front vest pockets for easy access. My plans were suddenly dashed when as suddenly as the chasm had opened the ground below me shifted once more. The two edge of the pit slammed together, thrusting upward upon impact like a newly formed mountain range The tornado was too close now, I had to get away, but the only way around the newly formed ridge was through the advancing shadow ponies. I gripped one more flare from my bag between my teeth and took off towards the left edge of the chasm. The shadow-claimed ponies there seemed to be farmers. One of them wielded a pitchfork menacingly while the other stood rigidly with a pair of gardening shears in her mouth. “Bumper… CROP THIS YEAR!” The pitchfork pony shouted in an echoing voice as he transferred the pitchfork from his hooves to his mouth and charged toward me. I arched my shoulders as I ran so that the remaining light in my saddlebag straps pointed square at the shadow’s chest, stopping him dead in his tracks. Without slowing I dipped my head and struck the flare on the ground as I ran. The burst of red in my face was blinding but I squinted my eyes shut as hard as I could and plowed into the shadow pony. The burning tip of the flare carved through the monster’s chest and I felt it turn to ash as I pushed through him. The second shadow was quicker than the first. I had to drop the flare just to be able to see well enough to follow her as she zigzagged across the field, threatening to appear at my side and gut me with her shears at any instant. For better or worse it didn’t matter at this point, because that’s when the tornado got me. A piece of flying debris, I think it might have been a mailbox, slammed into my hind legs and took them out from under me. I landed on my wounded flank and let out a sharp howl of pain. Fruit and branches from the orchard buffeted my head as I tried to stagger back onto my hooves. The winds were too strong; I could feel myself being pulled backwards across the dirt towards the funnel. The flare in front of me flickered and died out, and then the darkness took over. I felt my hooves leave the ground and the air leave my lungs. Chunks of debris pelted me relentlessly as the storm drew me further up the funnel. The feeling of suffocation slowly began to be replaced by the sensation of drowning. I was suspended in a cone of darkness and I could feel it creeping into me, seeping into my eyes and flooding into my chest like burning oil. This must have been what Hardtack Jack felt when he was taken. The tangible darkness pouring into his body and washing out everything that had made him who he was; leaving him a hollow shell full of nothing but shadows. Nothing more than a puppet for whatever grand power was at place here. I was going to die. After everything I had been through, I was going to die here.