The Kingdom of Everfree

by HeartlessSpartan

A Walk in the Park

A Walk in the Park

Orion lay asleep near the fire in the dining hall. Everyone else had rooms as well, but after they feasted they all chose to fall asleep where they were. Basil rested near the great window, Starswirl slept near the fire as well. Sombra fell asleep next to the dining table, and Regina slept with her head resting on a half-eaten pile of bread on the table. Yet there was another mysterious pony that entered the room and nudged Orion awake with one hoof. Orion awoke to see Silence Sweets standing near the fire. She turned to look back at him, her blind gaze was disturbingly accurate. Orion questioned whether or not she was truly blind.

“Find harmony,” Silence whispered in a sweet yet hoarse voice before she suddenly vanished.

Orion awoke and stood up, he was only dreaming. He quickly made his way up the stairwell Marcus had taken them earlier. He arrived at the solid wooden door, it was locked and he had no key. Instead he slid his blade between the door and the frame. Just barely sliding it down, it forced the end of the bolt from the frame and the old wooden door creaked open.

Orion looked cautiously into the room. Silence lay like a stone, cold and unmoving. He entered the room, blade at the ready. There was no one else inside, so he checked on silence. The elderly mare lay in bed with her eyes closed. Orion sat alongside the bed and brushed his hoof through her white mane. The poor mare was dead, but this had to be more than coincidence for her to appear in a vision. He noticed a piece of rope lying on the floor, so he turned around to check under the bed.

A short band of rope was stretched and torn. There was pillow there as well, cold and depressed, covered with tufts of gray fur. Orion sat up and lifted Silence’s mane to see the depressions and bruises from a rope. She was murdered, somebody had tried to strangle her but the rope snapped. So they resorted to suffocating her with the pillow to hide the cause.

“What reasons did they have to kill you Silence?” Orion quietly asked.

“The artifacts, the artifacts have the power,” somepony mumbled from behind.

Orion turned around to see Erik standing in the room with the door creaking shut behind him; rapier drawn.

“I must do as he says, I didn’t want to but he made me!” Erik shouted.

“Why?!” Orion demanded to know.

“She knew, she knew everything and now you know too much!” Erik shouted again.

Erik was very skilled with a blade, Orion tried his best to deflect the rapier but he was too fast. Erik’s rapier would just barely make contact on either side of Orion’s face and shoulders. Cutting just deep enough to make him bleed; Orion knew if he stayed trapped in this room he would die.

Orion picked up a stool from the corner of the room and hit Erik upside the head with it. Erik lost his balance and the tip of his rapier pierced through Orion’s hood and folded it. Falling back, Erik hit the window pulling Orion with him by the hood. The two dueling ponies crashed through the window and out of the tower. They both flailed in the air until they impacted in the snow that collected on the angled roof of the castle.

Orion painfully picked himself up from the snow; the rapier had slid down through the hood and inflicted a rather serious wound to his left shoulder. He had little time to recover. Erik rose up from the snow with his rapier and their blades clashed against the chilling night air.

Erik was gaining ground on Orion, forcing him gradually to the edge of the rooftop. Every time Orion deflected Erik’s rapier he lost ground, surviving this encounter was becoming increasingly less likely. Erik forced Orion nearly to the edge, so long as he had his rapier he had the upper hoof. However the snow accumulated on the roof had become unstable and dragged the two ponies down in an avalanche. They were carried off the rooftop and down the cliff of the hill the castle rested on.

Down at the bottom of the cliff near the edge of the forest, Orion broke through the snow gasping for air. He pulled himself out along with his blade. He stumbled about, trying to see where he landed. Before he had any idea Erik leapt over a mound of snow, now with both of his daggers. He landed atop Orion, but Orion rolled over and kicked Erik into the cliff wall.

“Die already!” Orion shouted as he thrust the sword through Erik’s neck and into his skull.

Orion staggered back away from Erik, who lay still in the snow gurgling from the last air in his lungs. Orion wandered into the woods, dragging his sword with him. His wounds only bled until they froze to his fur, but even then there were predators that could smell it. As he continued through the forest he could hear the patter of paws rushing through the snow.

A timber wolf leapt from behind a tree and latched onto Orion’s rear leg. It thrashed about as he cried out in agony. He dropped his sword and pried the wolf from his leg by the jaw. He tore the base of its jaw off and threw it into the nearest tree where it broke into pieces of sticks and branches. He rushed onward, the howls of more creatures following behind him.

Orion was gathering further attention. A group of three diamond dogs were patrolling the forest when they saw the wounded earth pony dragging himself onwards. The dogs attacked him with mining tools as they had before. The first swung a pickaxe at him, and just barely dodged it. He pulled the pickaxe to the ground with one hoof and forced the dog’s head down into the opposing end of it with the other.

As Orion cracked the pickaxe out of the dog, the timber wolves that were tailing him had flanked them. Three wolves leapt onto the second diamond dog and began tearing it apart. The third dog that watched his allies go down turned tail began to run. Orion lifted his pickaxe and whipped it through the air and into the dog’s back. Unfortunately throwing the heavy axe opened his wounds again. He staggered over to the second dog being attacked by the wolves. Picking a timber wolf up by its hind legs, he brought it down onto another crushing them both. Orion took hold of a branch that made the spine of the last wolf and tore it out.

“Help!” the second diamond dog cried out in terror before Orion pierced it with the branch.

Orion dragged himself through the snow, and further into the forest toward the mountains. Most of his wounds had frozen again, all but his leg and shoulder. The frozen night and the severe loss of blood was quickly taking hold. He was now running on adrenaline now. The further he carried on the weaker he became. His vision blurred as objects ahead of him blended together. He could hear whispers, voices carried by the wind. Orion stopped walking, he turned his head and stared into the brush next to him. Moments later a bolt of magic fired from the brush and struck him directly in the chest.

Back at the castle Basil was sleeping near the dining hall window. He was then woken by the sound of sheets of ice and snow sliding off the roof of the hall. He stood up and brushed the frost off of his fur from sleeping near the window. He made his way over to the fireplace where Starswirl greeted him with a nod.

“I think of little but a time when these nights aren’t bitter cold,” Basil said quietly.

“Understandable, I would wish to rest in the grass and watch the stars,” Starswirl thought aloud.

“It’s a fools dream,” Basil said regretfully.

“Then call me a fool then Basil, call us all fools. The least we can do is dream of something better. The real fools are those who gave up already Basil, the ones who say there is no hope left. Having that dream isn’t foolish, it’s the only right thing we know we’re doing for sure,” Starswirl said, pulling the fur down under his muzzle with his hoof.

“Fools for sure Starswirl. I have the feeling we don’t have as much time as we would hope to have to find out what the cause of these winters is,” Basil said.

“I agree, things may be as dangerous as they are now, but I fear there will be much greater peril awaiting us in our future. Perhaps we may wish to think of the totems Silence Sweets had drawn us as omens that don’t just predict a better future,” Starswirl explained.

“Ill omens? I hope not, I’d rather think of the cup half full than half empty Starswirl. I do agree with you though, these could mean something terrible as much as they could something good,” Basil said as he held his totem out to look at it.

“Let’s be the fools Basil and hope for the best then,” Starswirl said with a smile.

Over at the dining room table the banter from the two ponies woke Regina. She slid her head up off the table and sat up. She looked across at Sombra who was still asleep. She stood up and walked over and sat with Basil and Starswirl.

“This place feels so unnatural to me. Like it’s everything we needed was just handed to us,” Regina said with a drawn out yawn.

“You’re right, even though there’s these villagers that live outside the castle this food has to come from somewhere,” Basil agreed.

“The food, tables, carpet, tapestries, doors and chandelier; it doesn’t seem possible all of this was accumulated by these guild members as young as they are,” Starswirl said.

“Not including Sweets,” Regina added.

“They locked an elderly, blind and mute mare up the stairs of a tower. Marcus had said that she was the eldest member of the guild,” Basil said curiously.

“Thinking hostile takeover?” Starswirl asked.

“Maybe, it would explain how they have a castle like this,” Basil said.

“We should leave as soon as we can then. Maybe in the morning,” Regina said quietly.

“If all of you have such dire suspicions of this place and it’s owners why don’t you just go exploring like your earth pony friend,” Sombra said as he staggered over toward the window with drink in hoof.

“You saw him leave, when?” Basil asked Sombra.

“Hours ago, I don’ know,” Sombra grumbled, listing to one side.

“He’s plastered,” Regina pointed out.

“He should’ve been back by now,” Basil said.

“I think we will have to leave earlier than just the morning Regina,” Starswirl said hastily.

“Well I think we have a bigger problem Starswirl,” Regina said worriedly and pointed towards the great window at the end of the dining hall behind Sombra.

The entire room began to shake like giant footsteps. Sombra turned around to face the window just in time to see a giant thin gray hand reach up and grab the stone sill outside. An extremely tall and thin troll rose up outside the window. The giant gray monstrosity with long slender arms and black eyes stood looking back at them through the window. Sombra slowly began to back away from the window. The bottle he carried fell to the floor and shattered.

The giant outside looked directly down at Sombra as he began to say, “Oh sh….”

Sombra turned to run as the giant let out a gut wrenching roar that could be heard for miles. It placed its giant hands on the window and leaned inward.