Foolers Rush In Chapter Nine Rough Draft Complete!

Got a lively one on my hands here. I'd been struggling with this chapter for awhile but yesterday I threw down about 8 pages in google docs and the two fires, Firesight and Silentwoodfire both took a look at it and loved it! As per the odd-chapter rule, there's no sex — really can't call it clop at this point given the amount of story this thing has now. If you thought chapter 7 was a bit of twist well... chapter 9 is an even bigger one. My plan is to launch it on the weekend after Denim_Blue has given it a read. As per usual, the teaser!

Golden Harvest’s nose twitched as the scent of pollen floated past her nose. “Oi… That was a rough one!” She shifted uncomfortably as she felt the small pebbles embedded in the rocky soil poke her in the flank. A high-pitched gust of wind whistled past her ear, it’s strangeness bringing her heavy eyelids to open. While waking up outside was hardly beyond Golden Harvest’s experience as a pub crawler, the ambience was decidedly off-kilter. Brushing herself off, she took in the scene with absolute dread.

Before her lay a large field of stones ranging from foal-sized chunks of granite to more imposing Ursa Minor-sized boulders that towered way over head, stuck in what was once a riverbed as far as Golden Harvest could tell. Not that she was in any condition to consider the matter soberly as she trembled at the sight. Begorrah! The faeries really have taken me! I have to get out of here and find Lily! Frantically, she looked for  a clear path through the boulder field to avoid the stones as much as possible, which Caleponian legends stated authoritatively was where the Little People liked to hide — tiny ponies with insect wings who captured the big folk and dragged them into their faerie realm to keep as pets, never to escape. Clearly, placing her in this field was a method of torment.

She walked noiselessly, aside from the hammering of her heart in her dream self’s figurative chest, watching the stones out of the corner of her eye, fearing her gaze would draw them out of hiding. In the distance she could see a line of trees, not a welcome sight by any stretch with its berry bushes where faeries also hid but surely more secure than this taboo place!

Golden’s ears carefully filtered the air for sounds of impending doom: the sound of boulders shifting and the cries of tiny voices, but also anything of the more mundane sort. She came up with nothing but the latter, hearing the crackling of branches smacking together and the howling of the wind through the wide canyon, but even that was spooky without the chirping of insects of the songs of bird calls, which were missing despite the trees being in full bloom. Noting the chill in the air and the enveloping darkness surrounding her, she thought there might be a storm coming, but was greeted by something much worse when she looked up — an ominous bank of spiraling clouds like a great whirlpool in the sky.

Panic began to set in as the orange earth mare began to sob, pressing on slowly hunched closely to the ground as she crept past the hulking stone senteries. Her mind was filled with a terrible desire to call out for help that she forced herself to ignore. There was no help, only faeries and this fight was personal anyway. Clenching her jaw to prevent her teeth from chattering, she grimly marched the remaining fifty feet to the edge of the field, which rose up slightly and disappeared beneath a canopy of trees. Hope blooming inside her chest at the prospect of escaping the worst, she made a dash to the canopy as her hooves hit soft, moist earth which muffled her hoofsteps before coming to a halt.

There stretched out across the entire length of the treeline was a seemingly endless row of thistle bushes which blocked her path, their stems capped with purple flowers and covered with razor sharp thorns. Supposing the forest only opened up in certain places like the Everfree, she scanned the area for any sign of a road or trail without luck.

Sobbing hard once more as she looked out across the field of boulders, she heard the sound of rocks falling from their piles in the distance. Resigned to her fate and feeling lightheaded from fear and hopelessness,  she swayed lightly as if about to lose consciousness, but willed herself to remain standing and not faint. She snorted angry, as another sob escaped her. “Curse ye, little monsters! Come out and fight! I’m tired of yehr games! Face me, yeh cowards!” Her final exclamation echoed loudly off the walls of the canyon.

The plot thickens!