When the world was young, the gods walked the Earth, at least according to the old stories. In the time before mortals, everything that lived, and everything that did not, was a grand and terrible creature too magnificent to describe. They were forces. They were concepts. They were outsiders and beyond time and space and good and evil. These were the old gods, and the eons they spent on our plane were but an eyeblink in their long lives.
In time, they would turn against one another, waging bloody war across the stars. They would fall, and their bodies would rot and become one with the universe. My father always told us that we are but parasites, festering in the corpse of a once-beautiful goddess. The earth beneath our hooves is what remains of her flesh, the rocks are her bones, and the magic that makes life possible is the cast-off from her brilliant soul, decaying along with the rest of her.
"Mourn for Epona, for she was stolen from this world," he would say.
I don't believe the old story myself, but I find it a haunting metaphor. I do feel like a parasite sometimes, in how I drain this forest dry just so that I can subsist. I hunt its animals, and I chop down its trees, slowly extinguishing what little life still remains here in the winter. If I live long enough, one day there won't be a forest here. It's fortunate, in that respect, that I shall die soon. At least, I expect to die soon.
I dreamed of Epona last night. As my eyes flicker open and I return to the waking world, I try to remember that dream. Her smiling face, her beautiful flowing mane, her soft coat and magnificent wings... she reminded me of another mare I once knew. And with that thought, I feel an aching pain in my heart, and have to close my eyes again and take a deep breath.
I climb out of bed and inspect the curtains, as I do every morning. No damage. They're holding. The window is still cracked from the previous day, but there's little I can do about that. I sneer at the thing and throw the curtains back over it. Filthy vermin out there, all of them. But the damage is done, and I shall have to live with it. I don't have any spare glass panes left out here, nor do I have the resources to make my own, and I wouldn't know how to, even if I did. By my age, I've picked up a lot of skills, but glassblowing was never one of them.
Sewing, however, is. Being okay for firewood for the moment, and not needing to go out for food today, I determine that I will spend this day repairing things. The button on my coat is the priority for now. I cannot go without even a single button. The looser my coat, the more places the wind has to get in. I refuse to let the cold kill me.
For the moment, I just move from room to room and check all the other curtains and windows. None of them have any problems either. I maintained those well enough to not have any of the same issues. Letting my bedroom curtain deteriorate so much was a rare act of monumental stupidity that I won't be repeating again.
Once done, I head to the kitchen and make myself a coffee. I have no milk, so I am forced to take it black. I don't like it black. I don't even like coffee, for that matter. But I also ran out of teabags. The next time I go to Barnsley, I will have a lot to buy. It will be expensive. I'll need a lot of firewood to sell to cover it all; it's not like I have anything else out here worth trading.
My coffee prepared, I sit myself down at the table by my unlit fireplace, where my coat, button and sewing equipment are all laid out for me.
"Right..." I croak. "Let's see if I remember this..."
Many hours later, I wake with a start, still sitting in my chair. My coat with the resewn button rests in front of me, my needle and thread off to the side. A cold cup of coffee lays on the other side of the table. I must've fallen asleep after I finished the job. One of the many problems of old age is that one stops sleeping entirely by night. I have to take short naps in the daytime. It can't be helped; I haven't got a choice in the matter. But it's not usually this cold when I wake up.
I glance sideways out the window and see that night has fallen. I take a deep breath, and hold it. I usually have the fire lit by this time of night; no wonder it's so cold. But if it's already dark outside, then I must have been asleep for a very long time. Almost the whole day.
My chair topples over as I scramble for the window, drawing the curtains as quickly as possible. I run from room to room, drawing the rest of them too. The kitchen, the bathroom, my bedroom, and the other bedroom. Once I am done, I gallop back into the main room and over to the fireplace. My hoof slams down on the handle of the poker, flipping it up into the air. I catch the handle in my mouth and whirl around to see if anything is behind me. I turn again. Then I back up against the wall and scan with my eyes. There's nothing in here.
I move from room to room a second time, this time also visiting all the rooms without windows, like the cellar, the pantry, and the office. Each time, I keep looking over my shoulder, making sure that my back is never exposed, and I do not move on until I am absolutely sure that each room is clear. As soon as I'm satisfied that there is nothing in my home, I return to the main room and start piling some logs into the fireplace.
I glance back at the table where my coat and sewing equipment still lie. I frown at them. Why did I sleep for so long?
It's already late when I wake up the following day. I groan and turn over in bed. Last night was terrible. The usual knocks at the windows never came. Paranoia overcame me. I spent the night moving from room to room, inspecting them again and again, so completely certain that they were already inside. Why else wouldn't they try to break in like they usually did? I was up too late. It must have been the early hours of the morning when I finally couldn't go on anymore and had to collapse into bed.
And now, I don't want to leave it.
Those things were toying with me last night. I'm sure of it. They saw that the curtains were open, but they didn't take their opportunity, or maybe they missed it, and so they decided to back off and let me think that they were already inside. They wanted me to sit in here and be terrified, and they were probably out there the whole time, laughing at me.
I kick my covers off and try to force myself up. I almost can't. I have to roll out of bed. I really don't want to get up again today. I want to just stay in bed, and not have to go out there and face the horrid winter. But I can't. I have things I need to do. I need more firewood. It doesn't last long at all in this cabin. I burn through it fast, and it goes twice as quickly on the days I spend inside.
I head over to the window and draw the curtains back. The crack is still there. The curtains remain undamaged. I think I see movement outside, and my eyes dart towards the side. Something just out of view. Could've been a wild animal.
It probably wasn't.
It's actively snowing outside as I trudge along the path to my latest clearing. Not quite a blizzard just yet, but I can still feel the ice forming on my nose. The air almost hurts to breathe, but still I take big gulps of it, because otherwise I feel like I'm suffocating. I think something is wrong with my lungs... My eyes sting and start watering. I feel a tickling in my throat.
I can't help it. I collapse against the closest tree, my axe dropping out and landing in the snow with a thump. I bring a hoof up to cover my mouth and cough. It's a loud, dry, hacking cough, and it just keeps going. I am there for several minutes, stuck in fits of coughing that leave me even more breathless. I fall over and lay in the snow, spasming with each subsequent cough. My coat gets soaking wet from the snow, and my sides are freezing, but I barely notice.
Finally, it seems to subside. I roll over onto my back and stare at the sky. Snow still falls on me. A layer of snow sticks to my coat and has already melted through. My face is also wet, but from my watering eyes rather than the snow. I let out a groan and try to pick myself up. I slip and fall again. This time I don't try to get up again. I close my eyes.
"Celestia... please..."
I wake up screaming and in terrible pain. My whole body is burning and stiff. Is this frostbite? I look down and see a furred and muzzled creature with sharp fangs biting into my hind leg. It looks up at me with yellow eyes and growls. I try to kick at it, but my legs are like wooden posts now. I'm not moving a limb so much as swinging a bat. I kick the beast in the face with the leg it was trying to eat, and knock it back.
As I climb to my hooves, it starts advancing on me.
"Stay back!" I yell, leaning against the nearby tree for support. "I'm warning you!"
The wolf does not care. It pounces and knocks me back over, leaving me on my back in a snowdrift. It's on top of me in moments, and I'm trying to hold it back and push it off with my forelegs, even as I can barely move them. If I were born anything but an earth pony, I might've already died.
With great effort, I roll us both over, sending the wolf sprawling back onto the path. I feel something lumpy and solid on my back. Rolling over again, I see my axe beneath me, and I pick it up with my teeth. It's cold to the touch, but I barely even think about it. The wolf charges. I swing, and connect with its skull.
As the red splashes over me, suddenly I'm not so cold anymore.
I cry.
Thirty minutes later, and I'm making my way home with a wolf skin pelt and firewood in tow, still drenched in blood. I will need to clean my coat now. It is filthy. But I haven't that many cleaning supplies. It's not something that I usually bother with; I live alone, and I've grown accustomed to my own smell.
And besides, it's normally a great help to smell like this. The animals of Skydark Forest know the smell of well-washed ponies, and they always come searching for them. Those encounters usually end in bloodshed. It's been many years since any but myself have been this way, but... I have seen it happen. I've seen ponies torn apart right before my eyes by the things that live out here. Twice, in fact. And both times it happened, it was the single most horrible thing I'd ever seen in my life.
I'm almost to the door of my cabin when I stop in place. I gently set down my firewood and the pelt. My injured hindleg still stings, but my other is still going. I lean on that one and spin in place a hundred and eighty degrees. The path behind me is empty.
A bush rustles a few feet away from me. My eyes snap to it.
"Oh, no you don't!"
I limp over to the nearest tree. The blood on my coat is still fresh, so I smear my forehoof in it and then begin painting the tree in the familiar shapes and symbols.
I close my eyes and chant.
"Arc-muund, shev horsa icks beleren hel facilio!"
The language comes to my lips as easily as if it were my native tongue. The symbols on the tree are completed, and they glow a bright red. My breath is stolen from me, and I nearly fall over, but I brace myself against the tree. I hear a distant screeching and a pained wailing. The bush rustles again, but nothing emerges.
I limp over to another tree on the other side of the path. I have enough blood to paint a dozen more trees, and I fully intend to.
I paint the next tree using the same symbols and the same chant. It, too, glows brightly amongst the forest, and a shimmering red barrier grows between it and the other tree. This time, I really do collapse in the snow from weakness, but I pull myself up and keep moving in a ring around my cabin.
"I can do this all day!" I shout.
It's a lie. I can't do this all day. I'd have to be an idiot if to think I could get through even three more trees, let alone anything near a dozen. My soul is too weak; I'd burn myself up. But the sounds of pain coming from Skydark Forest would almost make it worth it.
The third tree lights up, and I feel like I'm having a heart attack. As I lie in the snow, trying to catch my breath, I can see something in the corner of my eye. When I focus on it, it vanishes, but I see it there again when my vision focuses elsewhere.
"I see you. I see you. Go back where you belong and rot there!"
The fourth tree will have to be my last. I don't go for the nearest one. Instead, I gallop all the way around to the back of my cabin. I'll have to settle for a rough triangle instead of a ring. Once I reach the fourth tree, paint it, say the words, and subsequently have another near-death experience, the wailing noise begins to ease. The sound dies away. Soon, the forest is quiet again.
I haul myself up and limp around to the front of the cabin, passing through the red barrier twice to reach my front door; the placement of the trees I marked caused the barrier to go slightly through the walls of my cabin instead of entirely around it. I pick up my firewood and my wolf pelt, and I take in the sight of the forest around me. All is calm. All is peaceful.
I open the door, step inside my cabin, and drop everything on the floor. I don't both sorting it out or storing it anywhere. I strip off my coat and toss it aside, along with everything else. I'm soaking wet, freezing, and stiff as a board. I should be dead. Hope kept me alive through that misery. Hope that I could win. This is why I don't like hope. It makes me endure this horrible life.
I draw all the curtains, stumble into my bedroom, and lie down to go to sleep. There, I dream of dead gods and fallen kings.
Spring cannot come soon enough.