Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"I am The Timberwolf."

[Edited for space. White Stockings spent time not finding anypony in the Twin-Horn pyrite mountains or grassy piedmonts of the Rim, learning he could graze in isolation, and pretty much becoming bored with a Tartarus that seemed sinisterly benign. He began to explore the restraint zones. - Princess Twilight Sparkle.]

...And then I climbed to a restraint plateau filled with what appeared to be an exploded log cabin. A rainbow crow, reflecting red, greeted me with an unintelligible caw from a rock ledge as I climbed off the last step.

The logs looked broken by storms or burnt by lightning, so perhaps the cabin assessment wasn't correct. Silver-brown bark clung to the rim of more than half of the wood, except for areas that looked gashed by claws, bashed by other logs, or just worn away by a bear scratching himself on a tree. Moss and calcified lichen dressed the bark, but otherwise the wood looked fresh and green. None of it looked rotted as a pile laying in a forest might. On second thought, it really did look like storm wrack, consisting everything from tree trunks and broken branches to twigs. Many of the thinnest sported a few leaves, all oval and seriated, likely an elm; I'd seen plenty of elm trees up and down the east coast.

So why did dismembered elm trees lay in a disarranged heap at the center of the glassy arena? A head scratcher. I laughed, musing that perhaps some red-eyed demon beaver had escaped here—though, considering my short instruction as to how restraint zones worked, that didn't make sense. Magic would prevent any escape. As I walked around the margin, I noticed chains that ended in logging hooks that dug deeply into four of the biggest trunks.

A cloud rolled across the sun and plunged me into shadow. A faint green glowing miasma clung to the pile and swirled in the breeze. The sight distracted me enough that I stepped into the arena.

I felt a tingling and saw a gleam, like you would see on a glass bell jar as you pass between it and a light. It was a shield spell. Other than the tingle, it had no effect on me.

The pile, on the otherhoof, began to rattle. Bits shivered and branches clacked against one another. The din spread across the entire collection of logs at it started self-assembling.

I backed out beyond the shield spell. In less than a minute, the whole thing became a monstrously large and lanky dog. The leaves created eyebrows and filled the ears of a log-snouted canine face, but also decorated its spine, and added fluff to the bottom of its tail and tassels where a pony had fetlocks. Enormous scythe-like claws formed on its paws and peg-like teeth arranged themselves in the jaw of a head that turned to follow my movement. The miasma filled in the interstices that would flesh out an animal shape. The stuff glowed like green fire in the eyes that opened to regard me.

The hooked manacles that dug into the creature's lower legs went to chains exactly long enough to keep it anchored in the restraint zone.

Oddly, it did not frighten me, though I did back into the pyrite mountain side. The creature's calm regard seemed calculated not to spook me. It had the form of a predator and seemed to know that was how I regarded it. Form. It was logs. And it wore them like clothes. Despite having teeth, what could it eat? The creature was the greenish fog. My guess, anyway.

A gravelly, thoroughly female voice asked, "Do you come to taunt me? Why do you wake me from a sleep of pleasant eons?"

A warm breeze ruffled my fur. I answered, "I'm not here to taunt you. I'm merely exploring a lonely world. You're obviously a light sleeper—"

She lunged. With the grace of a pegasus flinging herself into the sky, she came up short exactly at the margin of the glass floor. Where her muzzle touched the shield spell, sparks of burnt wood, like coals snapping in a campfire, popped and sailed to my side, skittled on the ground, and smoked. Her silence was eerie. Only her chains rattled. The wood composing her body made no noise.

My heart raced and I stared for a moment. It jogged my memory. I remembered one of my friends from my blank-flank days—Marlin. She had this thing for taunting junk yard dogs. She would figure out the maximum length of one's chain, then taunt it so it bark and jump and slaver, throwing spittle. When it realized its limits, she'd reach in with a hoof and touch its nose with the frog of her hoof and say, "Boop!" At that point, she would—every single time—get a "you stupid horse-face" look and they'd settle glaring at her.

I stepped forward, reached up to the two-story creature, reared, and touched her nose. She did not flinch. I felt the splintered wood and a bit of heat from the shield spell. I could smell her breath, which was as rank as it was green-colored. I pushed her back. Unlike a real dog, the geometry of her mouth made it impossible for her to snag the margin between my hoof and the shoe to grab me.

Her green glowing eyes narrowed. She stepped back so her chains allowed her to sit. Conversationally, she said, "You're new here.".

I sat, too. "How do you know?"

"The same way I know you never studied history."

I didn't concede anything. All information is valuable, but she powered on.

"I'm one of the biggest exhibits in Celestia's zoo and all inmates visit eventually." She leaned in and sniffed. "You smell like a pony."

I sniffed my shoulder, thinking Miss Compost Pile Breath was one to talk. "What I need is a bath. Does it ever rain in this desert land?"

"Weekly, so you've been here no more than six days. What did Celestia send you here for, Newbie?"

I huffed. I didn't consciously square my shoulders, but realized I had when I said, "She said I was evil."

I grinned widely.

"Pffft," she sneered, making raspberry sound though she had no lips. "All she told me was that I was dangerous." She shook her head and snorted. "I was, of course. As far as I know I was the only one to ever defeat Princess Celestia. She has no sense of humor."

I chuckled. "From personal experience, I'd agree, though the Canterlot Inquisition paints her as a practical joker." A bit of information in trade for, "The Princess didn't remain undefeated?"

"She does love her ponies. Have you never heard of the timberwolves?"

I remembered out loud and chose to narrow what I knew by equivocating. "Other than the street term for somepony who prefers to work at night with a few of his friends...."

"Your modern pony educational system must be failing. This is the first time I've met a pony who didn't know."

I stood, my heart beating faster. "There are other ponies in Tartarus?"

Her glowing eyes rolled. She didn't have to say newbie!. "I've been around awhile."

"Who are you?"

"I am Princess Forest Green. You may call me 'Princess.' And you?"

I touched a hoof to my chest. "I'm White Stockings. My friends call me Stockings. My business associates call me Running Mead."

"Sir Stockings," she said.

I bowed. "Princess."

"Are there any wild forests left in Equestria, Stockings?"

"Geography—"

"Is not one of your better subjects?"

I grinned and finished. "I only know of the Everfree Forest south of Canterlot. It's so dangerous and wild that nopony lives there, except a zebra I used to do business with."

The princess lay her head on the ground and sighed. "You have given me great hope, Stockings, that I may have saved some of my descendants. May hap I am not the first and the last of my kind. You are very nice."

"Not as in tasty, I hope."

She chuckled. "Do I look like I eat?"

"Actually... Not efficiently. I gather you're a 'timberwolf?'"

"I am the timberwolf. Before me there were none. The kindly wolf witches of the Auroral Forest found and condensed my soul from the ambient magic; I took their form in gratitude. I protected them for many years."

"I've never heard of the Auroral Forest."

"Even were you a genius in geography, you would not know of it. Between the dark-hearted Crystal Ponies who first settled the north and the later wave of far-eastern pony settlers who followed Celestia, they decimated the old deep wild woods."

"I see a conflict here."

The princess chuckled. That chuckle became laughter, but not the good kind. Lots of pain. Could wood weep, there'd have been tears.

"I'm sorry, princess. Nopony has ever accused me of being nice before and I guess I'm not really gallant."

"Then you do not know yourself, Stockings."

I had an insight. She really wanted a friend. In a place like this, I needed one, too. "I will hazard a second guess. When ponies chop down wood—"

That earned me a very long evaluating stare. I stopped there. My comment wasn't nice.

She sighed loudly. "Not so much the cutting but the gathering. If there aren't fallen trees or broken branches, there are no nurseries. The teeth in these jaws are for protecting. Silviculture is genocide. Evil—"

I gasped so loud, I interrupted her. "Evil is relative. And ethics is situational. I'm here because I didn't fully understand the concept. We may have a lot more in common than you might think!"

We talked for many hours. I would return regularly. She taught me ancient history and geography. I taught her to play cards—I'd gotten Stinky to teach me Queens and Horseponies so I could join his weekly game—and chess. She taught me how to make the glass restraint zone floor produce any food or drink I wanted, or any simple toy. We philosophized. Things friends do.

She obviously didn't eat me despite me giving her ample opportunity to do so.