I have seen some terrible things in my time, but never have I seen anything as horrible as watching Rose destroy her cabin. Her own home, and she did it so... cleanly. Like tossing out an old pair of horse shoes. There was real love put into that home. Carvings of mystical creatures, beautiful works of art that could only have taken months to create. Just, gone...
I think that single act was what really made me realize that I wasn't in just another normal scrape. That I couldn't get out of this just as easily as I blundered into it. This amazing unicorn had just destroyed everything she owned to buy some time for us to escape.
My real name is Thorny Patch, but I prefer Thorn. Thorny sounds too much like a pet hedgehog. I am a proud member of the Everfree forest rangers. Since the series of terrible events following the crowning of princess Twilight Sparkle, it has been the Ranger’s job to identify threats from the forest and hopefully prevent disasters.
Between the seeds of Discord and the attack by the Changelings, the task of patrolling the woods was now of critical importance. We needed to know what was out there before it could throw Equestria into chaos again.
A week ago, a team in the new magical research division detected an unusual magic source, deep in the Everfree forest. I was sent to identify and report on the source. The eggheads at HQ seemed to always find some sort of natural event or harmless magical creature. I had once led a team to investigate an event that turned out to be a crazy dragon with a huge mustache throwing a fit about his tail hair. Some Rangers were starting to joke about what fashion disaster they would find next.
This time however, something dark was rising out of the forest, and it had caught me completely unprepared. I was flying over the target area when a group of the strangest insect creatures burst out of a huge mound on the foot of a tall snow capped mountain. I'm one of the fastest Pegasi in the Rangers but I still only barely managed to escape. They got me with this weird glowing spit that took out my wings. As I fell, I hit a magical barrier that killed most of my momentum. It splattered a couple of the insect creatures forcing them to break off pursuit.
My last memory was falling face first into a soft patch of dirt next to a small cottage. When I came to, there was Rose, trying to help me out. She was trying to help dig me out but I had panicked and hit her with her own shovel. Just thinking about it now makes me want to face hoof.
I am absolutely horrible with mares. It's really like I'm cursed to forever act like a complete idiot around them. The guys back at the station called me "Lucky" if that gives you an idea of what I mean. Hearts and Hooves day is a nightmare for stallions like me. One time I managed to trip and dump a glass of ice water on the prettiest mare in town.
As I cantered behind Rose, I carefully took stock of the situation. I had been going for three days now and I knew I didn't have too long before I collapsed. I always got kinda goofy before I hit the wall and I was pretty much on the other side of that wall when I woke up in the dirt to her poking me. But now I was running on pure terror.
The look on her face kept coming back to me pushing me to run a little faster. This was the unicorn that lived in the depths of the Everfree woods and kept pieces of timber wolves in her cottage. If those insect creatures from that mound scared her that much...
As we ran through the woods I could barely hear her hoof beats. There were some earth ponies back at the station that could move like that, but never so graceful or effortless. Every time I stepped on a twig or crushed some dried leaves she would wince a little and look back with a worried expression on her face.
Under most conditions I was pretty light on my feet, I was a Pegasus after all, but right now they felt like lead. They would only get heavier with time too. Following behind her I felt like I was a new recruit still back in basic training.
As I snapped a particularly large branch hidden under some loose soil she suddenly stopped. I skidded to a stop behind her. She looked left, then back along our trail. She looked worried but I managed to keep my mouth shut for once today and kept watch behind her. Shaking her head she closed her eyes and her horn glowed.
The dirt and leaves around our feet swirled and gusted off to the left, snapping twigs and branches like firecrackers. The tiny whirlwind darted off through the woods to the east. She gestured me to the right into some nasty brush and motioned me to watch my step. She very carefully showed me where to put my feet as we moved a step at a time through a particularly dense part of the undergrowth.
I whispered "I could try to just fly over this?"
She looked at me and made a weird squeaky "shhh" sound and shook her head. She pointed at the sky and peeked through her hooves.
"They are watching the skies, the trees were blocking us from sight. Got it!" I whispered, while nodding and putting a hoof over my mouth.
After about a thousand paces of solid brush, she started running again. I stifled a groan, my legs were starting to feel like rubber now. As we moved through the forest, the branches slapped at my sides and grabbed at my wings. I felt like I was being clawed at by Timber Wolves. The effect was eerily similar to their way of hunting. I HATED Timber Wolves, I had once spent a week up a tree with a broken wing and them baying underneath. I don't know if you have ever spent a week in a tree, but it isn't fun...
Suddenly, there was a bright flash in the sky behind us. The entire southern sky lit up a strange green color, almost as bright as the sun. The glow encompassed a sphere centered around Rose's home. Dazzled I looked at Rose and saw her gesturing me behind a boulder as she cowered behind it. I dived just in time to avoid a blast of wind that threw leaves and branches like daggers through the air. I looked over my shoulder and saw a piece of rock, embedded in my pack.
"What the hay was that!?"
She looked at me, smiled and see sawed her hands like she wasn't quite sure.
"Did you set that up? What the heck was that?"
She shook her head. She made a little squeaking noise. I had seen some magical barriers go down in my time. I was there when the changelings assaulted the royal wedding. Barriers weren't supposed to go boom like that. In fact, I hadn't seen anything like it before.
She looked ahead and gestured for me to keep following her. I felt dizzy as I slowly climbed to my feet. Our little break made me just want to lie down behind the rock. Rose, on the other hand, started trotting off into the woods as light as feather. Her back legs bounced back and forth as if her heavy pack weighed nothing at all. I shook my head and followed her, it was going to be a long day.
We seemed to go on forever, climbing up out of the small valley over the steepest most rugged terrain she could find. However, we did manage to keep cover over our heads. I could barely keep up, but when she started to get out of sight she would slow down and check her surroundings looking almost like a feral creature on the hunt.
I had never been so tired in my life. Every step just merged into the next in an endless wave. If it hadn't been for her, I would have collapsed on the ground and just waited for something to eat me. But I got her into this mess and I wouldn't let her down now. Just keep moving Thorn. Just keep moving...
As we made our way over a shattered pile of boulders and gnarly roots I fell, sliding down the mossy rocks and at her feet. Rose looked me up and down with a worried expression on her face. She then tossed me a bag of water and sat down next to me. As I drank down the warm water she pulled open her pack. Reaching into the bottom she pulled out a tiny clay jar, stopped with a bit of cork. Handling it very carefully she removed the cork and looked me in the eye. She stuck out her tongue and opened her mouth then pointed at me.
Now that I think about it, I must have been crazy to trust her. I stuck out my tongue with my mouth open wide and she carefully tipped a drop of something oily and jet black out of the horrible jar onto my tongue.
Suddenly the world went crazy. First I tasted the most bitter thing I could ever have imagined. Something from the foulest depths of Tartarus had invaded my tongue and made it into a land of horror. Then I felt like someone had put a whole jar of ground horseradish in my mouth turning my face bright red and beads of sweat ran down my face. Then I had to mightily resist the urge to yell at the top of my lungs as the fire burned through my body.
Calmly ignoring my rolling on the ground and moaning she re-stoppered the jar and placed it carefully in my pack. Over time, the burning and disgusting taste faded. I crawled to my feet and looked accusingly at her. The longer I spent with her the more I felt the strange feeling that she might be trying to kill me.
"What in Celestia's name did you put in that?!?!"
She grinned and see sawed her hands again and shrugged her pack back over her withers. I was just about to grab her and shake her to get an answer when a sudden warmth moved through me. My legs didn't hurt anymore! My pack felt light and the ground didn't seem to pull me down so hard.
"Wow! That's amazing."
She squeak/giggled a little and started to trot on through the woods. I felt so much better now that I could actually keep up! She picked up the pace and started to follow the game trails left by who knows what horrible creatures. We trotted past a huge distorted skeleton that must have been over 20 feet tall. There were so many strange things hidden under the tree tops here.
One time she came upon a single flower sitting in the middle of the path and stopped dead. She glanced at me to make sure I was paying attention and tossed a stick at it. The flower grew ten times, reared up, and snapped the stick and ate it's halves. I gave that thing a VERY wide berth and I took careful note of it's size shape and color. No pony wants to get eaten by a petunia!
As we reached the edge of the valley something started to come over me. The warm lightness of the potion started to fade away. In it's place was the feeling that something was horribly wrong. My stomach rebelled as the world started to spin. The bitter taste of the potion came back to me full force. I have never felt so sick before. Just then we came to a huge boulder. Rose hopped up it like a little mountain goat and I groaned. I would swear she did that just to torture me.
I started to slither my way up the rock feeling like someone was stepping on my head. Note to self, NO MORE POTIONS!