A Journey Unthought Of

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 34 REVISED

Galloping hard into the darkness, Lyra didn't once look back to the Tardis or anypony inside. She couldn't handle any of this. Living nightmares seemed to be coming from out of nowhere and attacking her from all sides now. The humans, their wars, the planet's death, and the equine races' origins. It was all madness! And then there was Adam. What in the stars had happened? She remembered he was gentle and caring, fun-loving and sweet, but who was it that she had woken up to? It was like he was someone completely different: angry, vitrolic, and, and-

A branch she hadn't seen whipped just past her face, grazing her cheek harshly. A slow trickle of blood began to form, a languid drop falling to the forest floor. With sudden alertness the young mare began to realize just how alone she was. Alone in the Everfree, the light now past twilight and heading towards moonrise. A small clearing lay just ahead, full of field grass but otherwise empty. Lyra slowed to a trot as she approached the center until finally she flopped into the soft embrace of the weeds beneath in utter exhaustion.

Even as she breathed deeply to get her wind back she couldn't keep her tears at bay. How could any of this be? If the planet had died how was anything here? Why had humans decided to create ponies at all? Nothing made any sense, and the sheer enormity of it crushed her soul, but it always came back to Adam.

"Lyra," she heard a voice shout her name from the direction in which she had come. It was Bon Bon, she knew, but so focused was she on her tears and confusion that she didn't respond. Bon Bon called out again, for much longer and with greater worry in voice, "Lyyyraaa!" Just a few moments later the earth pony appeared in the meadow, following the broken and crushed vegetation her friend had left behind in her stampede. Seeing her friend not moving where she lay, Bon Bon rushed to her side as she continued to call her name; only noticing the unicorn's weeping when she was right next to her. "Lyra," Bon Bon said softly as she lay down beside her friend to comfort her, throwing a foreleg around her shoulder, "What was that back there? What is going on with you?"

"Bon Bon," she whispered, "You wouldn't understand."

"Come on," she shook her foreleg around her friend a little for encouragement, "Try me. You'd better explain this because right now I don't know what to think."

"Humans lived here," she declared with a sniffle, and then clarified, "before us." She then looked over at Bon Bon, fear in her eyes, "They made us. Do you get it? The only reason we talk, and think, and can be free is because they are gone."

The earth pony froze, the comprehension of what Lyra having said seeping deep down into her brain. "Where did you learn that," she murmured, "Who told you that?"

Lyra glanced away, and then rolled over to turn from her friend's gaze, freeing herself from the foreleg around her, "Discord."

"What," she exclaimed quietly, "How could he have spoken to you? How could you believe him?"

"I don't know how," she yelled in dismay, "but everything he said about human nature Adam agreed with."

Bon Bon thought back about what he had said, not just from a few minutes ago, but even as far back as near to when he had first arrived. "Lyra," she said quietly, "i don't think he ever told you in so many words, but Adam didn't have a good life where he was from. When you get mistreated by others it can become hard to see the good surrounding you, and he's struggling to look past the bad."

"But what I saw-" Lyra tried to say even as her friend interrupted her, "It could just as well have been an illusion. Other species have done some bad things, but think about it: so have ponies too." She gestured out to the area in front of them, "Think about the three races: why is there even such a name when back in the day there were clearly six? We shunned and drove away the bat ponies, the seaponies, and the zebras because they were different and scared us. Think about what the Solar Cultists did back during the 300s: the zealotism, the coercion, and the 'reeducation'. If humans are bad at heart maybe we are too for all we've done." She looked away from her friend, slightly embarrassed by what she had to say, "Besides, I don't think he would ever try to hurt you."

"But you saw the way he acted," she said quietly, "How could he be so...different from the way he had been before?"

Bon Bon once again found herself in the unlikely position of having to defend the being she had never really enjoyed. The irony was not lost on her. She fumbled for words, trying to find some way to connect with her friend. Meanwhile, back on the forest path, a faint but eerie glow appeared around the area where Lyra's blood had fallen, and a low growl seemed to come from the surrounding twigs and sticks. Adam was running through the shrubs and fallen leaves not far away. following after the now widened trail from the two ponies who had cut it with their stamping hooves.

"It’s like-" Bon Bon started, and then stopped as she struggled with her analogy, "It's like when you’ve created one of your songs that has multiple layers in it. You know how sometimes some notes or chords become more prominent when you're listening in certain places or in certain moods? That's what's happening here with Adam. The same person you and I have known is still there, it's just things have changed somewhat, and what was in the background is now there for everyone to see and hear." She put her foreleg back around Lyra and stroked in a back and forth motion to try and comfort her friend, "He hasn’t changed, you're just seeing a side of him now that's new to you; after what he's been through just in the past night, us included...maybe we all need to take a step back and give ourselves time to think a bit, yeah?"

Lyra stiffened underneath her outstretched foreleg, and her head came up to look back from the way they'd both come. Bon Bon followed her gaze slowly. Both of them heard the sound at the same time: the snapping of twigs and a rustling sound with no wind. From out of the forest five sets of greenish-yellow eyes appeared, scrutinizing them in a predatory manner. The smell of decomposing moss and grass now hung in the air, filling them each with the very real desire to retch. Each pair of eyes gave a low growl, each one seemingly lower and more threatening than the last. The girls slowly got up and began to back away, offering them as much ground as they wanted. The eyes drew closer until their owners' forms were made plain when they entered the meadow: timber wolves.

They began to fork out from their pack in order to surround Lyra and Bon Bon. While their name was identical to those wolves of our world, they got their name for a more literal reason. Every timber wolf is made of hundreds of twigs and tiny branches, and while they may get their sustenance from the ground in a similar manner to trees, they were still extremely protective of their territory and just as ferocious as their more fleshy cousins. Lyra and Bon Bon had unintentionally encroached on their land, and regardless of whether intentional or not, the pack had come to show what happened to interlopers.

"Can you get us out of here," Bon Bon murmured quietly as they continued giving ground.

Exhausted physically and unfocused mentally, Lyra was only able to say, "No."

Bon Bon looked up to the sky and yelled, "Rainbow! Fluttershy! Come quick! Help!"

The timber wolves' ears perked but their stalking towards the two of them continued all the same. Lyra and Bon Bon stood with their faces in opposite directions, each now covering the other’s flank and making sure they kept their eyes on a wolf at all times. Each of the predators was trying to maneuver into a blind spot, and with each step came the distinctive twig snapping, branch bending sounds made by their footfalls. Bon Bon was facing down two of the pack’s five members, while Lyra was nearly six hoofsteps away from two additional wolves and the Pack’s alpha. Each of the pack’s regular members was about their size, but the alpha was nearly a head above either of them. The thorny branches that made up the alpha’s jaw were poised and waiting for one false move from either of the ponies.

"What are you doing," Lyra hissed as she nervously looked at the pack.

"They should be around here somewhere, and if we can't run we need to fight."

Lyra wanted to be able to just light her horn and blast through the creatures, but she didn't have the strength to take on all of them, even if she weren't exhausted already. There was, however, something she could yet do. It was true that Lyra couldn't get the both of them out of the mess they now found themselves in, but that was because she only had enough concentration and energy to do one teleportation spell. After that...

"Actually, I think I can do it," she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering anymore than it already was.

"Well if you think you can you'd better do it quickly," Bon Bon said softly as they started to turn with the now circling pack.

“Right,” Lyra’s voice cracked and she began quietly sobbing again as her horn lit up, “Okay.”

The alpha’s eyes narrowed and it's thorny grin became more pronounced as it snarled at the growing light. Judging by their behavior their attack was almost certainly imminent.

As soon as the teleportation spell became ready, Lyra glanced back at her best pony friend in the world. They had been through a lot, the two of them, even in just the past few days. She had always been good to her, Bon Bon had: allowing her to live with her, occasionally even cleaning up after her and being her voice of reason. She truly regretted that she hadn't been a better roommate, and a better friend. Perhaps now was the one chance she would get to pay that debt back.

“Good-bye Bon Bon", she whispered hoarsely, the words seeming to take more effort than the spell ever could have.

Bon Bon half whirled around as she processed what her friend had actually said, but even as she blurted out an alarmed, "What," she was already gone from the meadow, vanishing in a patch of green light to appear just a stone's throw from the Tardis.

After the post-teleport disorientation had worn off, Bon Bon realized what her friend had just done and what that meant for her. Even as the others saw her and began to gallop towards her, she stamped her hooves to the ground and yelled into the forest, “You stupid foal!” as tears began to pour down her face.

Lyra, still weeping but at peace with the knowledge that her friend was at least away from danger, looked up to see all the timber wolves shuffling in place, their wooden hackles raised, and their rears wiggling. At last the alpha lunged forward, ready to put its jaws around the throat of the tired and defenseless unicorn.

Then all hell broke loose.

---

It was just as Lyra was making her goodbye to Bon Bon that I burst into the area. I had the two ponies in my sights when I saw the green flash that made the earth pony vanish into thin air, and then I more clearly saw why. Monstrous creatures of wood and vegetation were surrounding Lyra. My Lyra. I saw that the largest of the five creatures had its back to me and that it was ready to strike. If I had been thinking rationally, or for that matter thinking at all, I would have probably stopped and tried to plan something or have made a weapon of some kind. Then again, I probably would have also been too late. Instead I leapt into the clearing, sprinting into reach of the monster and jumped, letting out a furious roar unlike anything I had ever heard myself do.

Even as the large thing pounced its ears perked and it tried to turn its head to see the new threat. The four smaller ones jumped in place, their eyes locking onto me as I flew through the air to land on the back of their leader, my weight forcing it to the ground. I grunted in pain as I now felt the notches and knobs of the wood beneath me cutting into my chest and abdomen. I saw Lyra's terrified face right in front of me, and with what air I still had left in my lungs I wheezed to her, "Run!"

I then felt the creature's legs adjusting underneath us and I knew it was trying to rise. I'd never fought a dog before, which this certainly looked like, but I sure as hell knew I wasn't going to let those jaws or claws anywhere near me! The smaller dogs seemed to back off, I guess to allow this one its space to take me on. I wrapped my arms tightly around its neck and my legs around its center, and I knew I was in for the worst rodeo of my life. It whipped its head back and forth, snarling, snapping and howling as it did, even as it tried to shake me off from side to side. I dug my knees in tighter and tried to constrict my arms around its neck, praying to God somehow I could strangle the damn tree wolf! Even as we jumped back and forth and whirled around I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Lyra was still stock still where she had been through the whole thing. "RUUUUUN," I bellowed out to her.

Suddenly the wolf thing froze in place beneath me, and out of nowhere I collapsed into the grass in a pile of twigs and moss. I froze for a second, thinking I had won. As I put my left hand to the ground to help right myself, I felt a searing stabbing on my forearm. I yelled out in alarm and pain. When I looked down I saw now that the head of the wolf was mauling my arm even as it reconstructed its form around the eerie green glowing light that I now realized gave it life. Blood was beginning to flow freely down to my wrist even as it tried to chew higher up my arm.

A ferocity like I'd never felt came over me, and with teeth bared I jumped on top of the creature to pin it and cocked my right arm back, slamming my fist down on its wooden skull again and again. I heard it yelp around my arm and the twigs around its face began to break under my blows, even as the skin of my knuckle broke and bled. Suddenly I felt its jaws lock deeper into my left arm, and they didn't move after that. The agony that came with it made my roaring louder. My left arm felt like it was on fire.

I slammed a fist straight down on its glowing green eye and the light faded, but its hold didn't yield. My strength was fading. I could swear there were now two wolves under me when there had been one just a second ago. I was starting to see double I realized fuzzily. The monster managed to tip me over, and someone screamed my name. It was Lyra. What the hell was she still doing here? The monster now stood above me I saw blurrily, and only now did I realize I had fallen onto my side. It looked down at me with its one good eye, a mix of abject hatred and triumph on its face, blood and poison dripping from its jaw. I figured this would be my end. From behind me I saw a sudden burst of mint green and a small pinpoint of light struck the creature. It howled in pain as flames consumed its bark. Lyra. I vaguely heard a thud as I started to black out. Maybe this was the end of the line for both of us.

---

Lyra gave every last ounce of magic she still had in her to fire that flicker of mage fire, but it only seemed to scour the outer bark of the beast’s hide. Completely depleted of all energy, her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell unconscious, musing this was probably the end of them both. The alpha, wounded but victorious, threw its head to the sky and howled, as did the four of its pack. It then stepped over the fallen biped to finish the kill and rip out it's throat, when suddenly from nowhere a small thunderhead pushed by two pegasi came above them and let loose a furious bolt. Spooked by the sudden thunderclap, the four small timber wolves retreated into the forest. The alpha initially stood its ground, but a second bolt struck right in front of it, scorching the earth near its wooden paws. Sufficiently threatened, it beat a hasty retreat after its fellows, leaving the two winged ponies to discover their compatriots below, unconscious and bleeding.

Author's Note:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Comments

[Luckyfanisaac]

"Lyra," she said quietly, "I don't think he ever told you in so many words,

Adam was running through the shrubs and fallen leaves not far away. Following after the now widened trail from the two ponies who had cut it with their stamping hooves.