Chapter 3
Leaves rustling in the gentle wind…
Hoofsteps crunching on the ground…
Voices resounding from all around…
“What…”
“... don’t know…”
“What… do?”
“... the Tree…”
“... you sure…”
“...can’t leave… Legendary… He’ll… it…”
<~>
Running water. Rustling leaves. Resonating laughter. My hearing was the first of my senses to return. Soon after, my touch came. Thousands of spongy needles lay underneath me, cushioning my body. I laid on my side, my hooves curled up to me. I opened my eyes, only to slam them back together. Oh dear Celestia, that hurt. More gently this time, my eyes slid open, shielded from the sunlight with my right foreleg.
Slowly, so very, very slowly, I managed to lower my foreleg and get to my hooves. Turning all around, I realized I was in what appeared to be a clearing in the forest. Pine trees surrounded my form, the needles shimmering in the slight wind. Sheets of sunlight filtered through the gaps in the trees, illuminating the area. Looking to the skies, I realized the sun had decided to make an appearance today, although the low hanging dark winter clouds foretold of a rainy future not too far off.
I continued to gaze around at my surroundings. My first instinct was to try teleporting back to the library. Horn alighting, I cast the spell to teleport myself back, but to no avail. I frowned. Discord must have done something to prevent me from teleporting, just like he did back at the library. Looks like I’ll be looking for a way out of the forest the old fashioned way. The environment didn’t give off a foreboding sense of dread, fear, or sadness, so I knew it wasn’t the Everfree forest. It must be one of the other, tamer ones. Taking a deep breath, I began my trek through the trees, but stopped when I heard laughter.
Wait a minute. That voice. I remember that voice. That’s what woke me up in the first place! Excited to meet somepony who could hopefully help me out, I followed the direction I heard the laughter coming from, which was actually opposite the direction I was heading. Luckily, the laughter was faint, so I knew I didn’t have far to go before I would find it’s owner.
Pushing my way through the various plant growth, I quickly realized that an alarming number of them were unfamiliar. Bringing a small flower in for examination, I saw that it appeared to be made of a sort of stained glass. The flower was spiraled, similar to an ice-cream cone from Sugarcube Corner. Lines of varying shades of green intercrossed the entire plant, and near the base it changed to a soft violet. Petals of purple and blue jutted out at the bottom.
Running a hoof over it, from the top to the base, to the petals on the bottom, I shuddered as I realized that, no, it wasn't glass, but at the same time it wasn't a plant based material. Instead, it felt sort of like a flexible piece of glass. Oh, the things that can be learned from this flower alone... The possibilities were endless! Clothes that could make a pony near invisible without the use of magic, a mirror that would bend, but never break, even a coating for everyday household items to prevent their easy breakage! Wanting to document it, but knowing better than to do so before I knew where I was, I continued on, resolving to come back and document the flower another time.
Soon enough, I began faintly hearing the voices again. As I quickened my pace so as to arrive faster, the various voices became audible enough for me to nearly distinguish individual words. In fact, I also began to hear their tones, which sounded.... playful almost, like how a foal would be expected to sound whilst playing with friends.
Laughter? Are they not afraid of this forest? Then again, I suppose if they lived in here they wouldn't be, although why they would choose to evades me.
As I approached them, I could finally hear individual voices. A light, male voice called out, "Hey, Chloe, pass it over here!"
"Got it, Riptide!" Another voice answered, although this one was that of a young filly's. The whizzing sound of an object being thrown at high speeds assaulted my ears.
"Come on Zori! We can't let them score!" Another filly’s voice said in a singsong tone, presumably to "Zori".
"Don't worry Yuzee. You know I won't let them near our goal again." A fourth, and sounding the most mature and calm, male voice entered, as a reply to "Yuzee".
Those are slightly odd names for a pony. Out of the four, Riptide’s makes the most sense. Zori was normal enough, too, despite the fact that it did sound slightly more feminine than usual for a colt. I suppose Chloe could be acceptable, but Yuzee? Really?What kind of a name is ‘Yuzee’? Rapidly approaching the next clearing where they presumably were, I wondered of their age. They didn't even sound like grown ponies, more like foals, really. Flashes of color jumped in and out of the gaps in the trees, a mixture of red, brown, blue, and dark grey, but never stayed long enough for me to get a good fix on them.
As I neared the last set of trees obstructing my path, their game continued on. Breaking through the branches, I called out, "Hello, I was wondering if yo- Gah!" Oh sweet Celestia, what are these things!?
Ahead of me, where I had originally presumed several ponies would be, were these odd creatures, who seemed to be playing with miniature soccer ball. One of them was small and light brown, looking to be a mix between a young cat and a fox. Large, pointy ears stuck out from it’s head, with a darker shade of brown fur coating it closer to the base. Fluffy, light tan fur fluffed out from its neck, and the same type of fluffy fur made up its tail. Small tufts of fur stuck out from its head in spikes.
The next was some sort of blue bi-pedal lizard, looking to be no larger than a foal, with what looked to be four small red spikes adorning it’s back, and going down it’s tail. It's arms ended in what appeared to be short stubs, similar to a dragons claws, and it's chest had two symmetric yellow parallelograms at about a thirty degree angle. A large maw made up the majority of its face. Most likely this one was a dragon, or a crocodile.
On the other side of him, holding what looked to be a miniature soccer ball in it's mouth, was what looked like another fox-like creature. A strange mixture of red and brown made up its coat, and several tufts of what looked to be reminiscent of a mane curled out from the top of its head. Brown pupil-less eyes were on both sides of it’s face. An almost white color seemed to break through the field of fur on it’s underside, and it had what looked to be six tails, all curled in much the same way as its mane.
Lastly, near the opposite end of the clearing, a light gray fox like animal stood. The bottom half of its legs faded from gray to a muted red, the same shade of red the top half of its mane was. A large, bushy gray tail protruded from it. By far, it was the largest of the bunch, looking to be about half the size of Princess Celestia.
Slowly backing up, I realized that there was no way I'd be able to fight them off. I mean, I had the magic to do it, but I would never kill something, and if I fought these obvious predators, it may come to one of our deaths. I just have to back away slowly, and hope to Celestia that none of them heard me call out to-
"Hey guys, look, it's that one Pokémon Mew showed us earlier!" The brown cat said to the others, motioning at me with one of its paws.
The ball dropped from the red fox, and it bounded forward to me, quickly being followed by the brown cat and the blue dragon-lizard.
"S-Stay back!" I cried out, not wanting them to come to me. Oh Celestia, these things were going to kill me! At least three of the four were carnivores, and the last one may very well be one also. There was no way I would let them have even a chance at me. Lighting up my horn, I teleported to the other side of the field, and behind a tree where I hid, unseen.
"Hey, where's she going?" One of the male voices called out.
"I don't know, but we can't let her get away! Mew said we need to make sure she was still here when he got back." Hearing this, I forced my hooves to start moving as fast as they could carry me away from them. Knowing they wouldn't be far behind, I sprinted through the tree line, making sure to avoid all roots, rocks, and anything else that would obstruct my escape.
As I ran, I felt my back began to dampen, until finally I realized the rain had finally begun to fall. Although It was slight and had done nothing so far, other than lightly dampen my coat, I knew that it could be dangerous to continue running in this weather.
Twisting my head slightly, my vision was assaulted with the colors of the various foliage, along with constant shades of brown, red, and blue. Turning back around, I knew there was a big enough gap between us that I could still manage to escape. I just needed some manner of escaping their pervading sight.
Up ahead, there was what appeared to be another clearing. Deciding that the best course of action would be to go through there and then make a hard turn to the left, I galloped towards my destination.
As I broke through my second set of branches for the day, I turned left, only to be met with the light gray fox from earlier.
"AHHHHHH!" I screamed, jumping back in fear. Oh sweet Celestia, now I'm really in for it! How did he even catch up to me that fast?!
Turning tail to run in the opposite direction, I began galloping forward, only to meet a giant rock wall. Quickly changing my direction for a second time, I instead continued to go the way I was originally going. The light gray fox continued standing where I ran into him, looking my way. But as I galloped, I had to stop yet again, and I came to a grim realization: I was trapped. In front of me was yet another rock wall, although this one had several trees in front of it.
Turning around, I looked to see if I had enough time to attempt the last way; where the fox had most likely come from. But alas, that way was blocked off also, this time by trees growing so thickly together, their gnarled bodies stopped all but a foal from going through. In fact, with the gaps at that size, how did the fox even manage to get through to here without me seeing it? But that was a problem for another time. Right now, I had to get out, and get out fast.
As the rain began pouring harder, I looked to my last hope, the only exit in the clearing, only to have my hopes of escaping through there dash away as I saw the other three of the four creatures from earlier appear. As I looked all around me, I realized I had one thing, I had one last thing that would be able save me; I had my wings.
Spreading my wings to their fullest, I took off, off to the tops of the trees, aiming for the top of one of the rainclouds above me. Glancing down from my height, I saw the animals looking confused up at me, most likely from not knowing their prey could fly. So fast and so high was I flying, that they soon became just specks in my vision.
Smiling triumphantly, I pushed myself up, up, and away from the clearing, and to my salvation, the dark grey cloud just thirty meters away, only to feel a slight tugging at my wings. As I looked at them curiously, I saw something that filled me with dread. My wings were.... My wings were.... My wings were disintegrating. Every feather, every muscle, every bone, all of it was disappearing. As I looked at my wings in horror, I didn't realize that the ground was rapidly approaching. The pain was excruciating, but I knew that I had no choice. Trying in vain one last attempt to flap them, my heart nearly stopped as the rest of them disappeared.
There’s so much to see from the sky. From one hundred meters, already an adult pony looks as small as a large insect. From two hundred, they’re just a tiny little smudge, barely recognizable as a pony. From three hundred, they can still be seen, although only the most talented pegasus can still make out that they are, indeed, a pony. From four hundred, those same talented ponies are barely able to tell that there’s something there. And from five hundred meters, not even the best of the best can differentiate between a pony and something of equal size.
Once you’re up in the air, however, the ponies on the ground no longer matter. What does matter is the floor of the planet, filled with enormous, twisting forests of miniature trees, paths looking as though they are simply wrinkles in the dirt, and valleys looking like dents in the earthen floor. From up in the sky, everything gets put into perspective. You start to understand how small you are, how insignificant you are, when compared to the entirety of the world.
And it only gets worse the higher up you go. Eventually, even the huge trees of the forests, the valleys in the hills, and the weaving paths, all turn to smudges. Eventually, they turn white, because up past the clouds, all you can see are the clouds. Sure, they can be moved, but then again, who are you to decide to move them? The cloud is far, far bigger than you’ll ever be, and even though you can move it, even though you can control it… should you? Should you get to dictate what it does?
Past that, if you can still see the ground, well, you can see so much more of the world. Far off cities with their glamoring, winking lights come into view, oceans can be seen peeking over the edge of the horizon, and the mountains begin looking more like raised bumps on the land. Past even that, and- well, I suppose only one pony has ever been higher up than that and lived, and, as far as I know, Luna has never been one to talk of it.
I think that, once you’re up in the sky, you really can begin to understand where it is you fit in the world. Everypony should have the chance to go up as high as they can, no matter the cost. It would truly help us as a species better learn how it is we relate to the world in all its entirety, in all its glory. It would truly help us as a species better learn how it is the world relates to us, in all our entirety, in all our glory.
I fell, hitting the same speed as the rain, and then falling faster than it, so fast that I had to close my eyes from the air rushing past. My horn crackled uselessly as I did all I could to slow my fall, to give myself something, anything, that would make it so I could survive. And then I hit the ground.