//------------------------------// // To Challenge a Guardian // Story: The Keeper of the Grove // by Orkus //------------------------------// Cert let out a stale and weary puff of air as she pushed aside the leafy branch of a bush that rested in her path. All the plant life to inhabit this forest was a trial in and of itself to overcome, and this mission alone was one that tested her resolve quite fiercely. But she had endured it all with a will of tempered steel, and she was so agonizingly close to her goal now, she could practically taste it. A love-eating changeling looking like most others, the only distinguishing mark she bore, perhaps, was her left ear. It looked heavily torn and ragged, as opposed to the webbed appendage it once resembled - a disfigurement gained from a scuffle a long time back that still sat fresh in her memory. Her dark carapace was currently donned in the reflective armor of a common soldier, though common she was not. Trailing behind her, each one also a born and raised changeling, were five more soldier drones dressed in a similar manner of armor. They were the troops under her command, and while being some of the toughest changelings Cert knew, hoof-picked by their queen, Chrysalis, for that sole fact, they were quite the disorderly bunch. And why they had been chosen was to come here. Chrysalis needed what they were now after ever since sustaining terrible wounds from the failed invasion of the pony city of Canterlot. It was during a royal wedding that their queen launched it through clever deception, but they were all repelled away by a blast of pure love energy. The physical injuries were of little issue, but the magic-induced maladies Chrysalis sustained from that point-blank blast and flight proved much too grievous to heal naturally from, or recover even with the aid of what healing magics and medicine the hive knew or were able to steal. The quest personally given by their Queen to mend what ailed her before they could become something worse than they were now was what led Cert within the densest folds of this unimaginably vast forest, located in a distant, uncharted land. Trees, with thick trunks nearly a dozen feet in width and coated almost entirely in verdant vines and fuzzy green moss, were the seeming hallmark of these thick and untouched woods. And that was without mentioning the unkempt undergrowth of long grass, shrubs, bushes, and prickly plants making up its floor and the changelings' uncharted path. No matter how much they wanted to, they couldn't speedily fly through it on their buzzing, transparent wings. The branches and the vines lining the trees were in too thick of an abundance, making it nearly impossible to traverse without having to repeatedly stop, turn, and find a new way to move through the labyrinthine canopy. And flying above the trees themselves was just as vain, as their tops concealed the various landmarks they depended on to find their way around. That wasn't to say that having the time to really take in the sights set before them was too much of a bad thing. Never before had Cert, or any of the changelings traveling with her ever seen so much vivid, life-filled green before in their lives. In fact, some of them had spent the majority of their lives within the dark, ever-shifting confines of their hive. Here, sometimes they would pause to gape at the breathtaking scenery to be had at some places. But it was never for long. They had an objective to fulfill. And having now entered their sixteenth day of travel, some of them were getting unimaginably tired of it. One of the youngest drones in the group, Milkweed, unleashed a loud, groaning whine from where he walked in the back of the group. "My hooves are killing me..." he said in a nasally tone. "Can we take a break? That last bunch of thorn bushes we went through my gear and scraped my legs really bad..." "No breaks!" shouted back Cert in her typical, raspy voice, already fed up with his complaints no sooner than they had begun. "We're far too close to the grove for breaks now, soldier. And you had best not continue your whinging unless you want our queen to hear about how much you've been acting like a newborn grub since our mission started." Milkweed quickly went silent after quietly giving off a low response of "Yes ma'am," to his superior. It wasn't long after that when another drone near the middle of the line, Beetlewing, approached a friend of his, Cricket, with a small issue pressing down firmly on his mind. "Hey, Cricket, do you think we're actually trying to find a real thing?" he whispered to her after catching up by her side. Her horned and helmeted head tilting, Cricket sent an inquisitive look his way. "What do you mean by that? Of course it's real. It has to be." "Well, I know that's probably the truth. But remember how those deer... acted," he continued on, mentioning the inhabitants of the large, isolated village they had stopped close to two days prior in their travels. They arrived near there first after coming to this eldritch forest to question them about the location of an ancient grove containing the mystical treasure that was their objective. "They gave us all the info we needed, Beetlewing," Cricket said reassuringly. "And our magic told us that they weren't lying." "But why'd those deer give us the info to their supposed 'sacred grove' so darn easily?" questioned Beetlewing again. "I mean, we forced 'em to tell us, sure. But they were so... unworried about it, once they spilled the beans. So utterly unworried about us - some surely untrustworthy and, in their eyes, despicable changelings - heading off to steal some of their most treasured of resources. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they would've simply told us if we just asked them." "That doesn't matter," barked Cert, who had caught wind of the conversation, snapping their attention, as well as the focus of the rest of her soldiers, onto her. "We have our path set, and we're going to follow it until we reach our destination. Remember changelings, the sooner we get into that grove and get that 'sacred amber' for our ailing queen, the sooner we can fly out of this darned forest and get back to the hive. And also remember, soldiers, that Queen Chrysalis will generously reward us for working so hard to get her cure." "Yeah!" cheered another drone, one named Weta. "By the way, this 'amber' stuff... do we even know what it's like?" "Why do you ask?" questioned Cricket. "Because I'm curious, of course." "Then allow me to tell you," she said. "It's like golden sap. Sap that's gained a legendary reputation for what it can do. From what I've gathered from the village alone, the red deer that live in this forest take the stuff from the grove in times of need, do something to it, and give it to the sick and injured, or something like that. It can cure any ailment, supposedly." "Oh, so that's why our Queen wants it." A collective sigh went about as nearly every member of the party exhaled at Weta's comment, and Beetlewing voiced their shared concern. "Were you even paying attention to anything in the briefing we received before we left the hive?" he grumbled. "Maybe..." Weta replied, shifting his teal eyes around with uncertainty. The ignorant changeling was only saved from being berated by his fellows when a strange noise suddenly materialized from the once-silent forest with as much warning to heed it as the hiss of a passing gust of wind. "Trespassersss..." The sound of a deep, echoing voice boomed with the impact of a clap of thunder. Its reverberating pitch seemed to surround the drones, and all they could do was pause, mouths hung agape and hearts throbbing in their chests in alarm at its suddenness. "I... I am this grove's guardian, and your ilk are not welcome here. I grant none of you interlopers permission to enter..." Her horn glowing, Cert was the first to regain her composure and stomped forward several feet, crunching the grass beneath her hooves. "Who said that?" she asked to the space of the forest in front of her in a dense growl, before her voice grew in volume. "Who said that?!" "I warn you; take not a step further, or your lives shall become forfeit," the voice went on as the startled changelings continued to desperately look around for where it was coming from, discovering nothing. "Leave this hallowed place in peace. Go back from whence you all came, and no harm shall befall any of you. Stay, and my actions will be swift." A threat. As it was made clear a few seconds later that the voice was done with speaking, Cert realized that what she and her troops had just been given was an unmistakable threat. She wasn't willing to take such an ultimatum as that lightly, and she soon showed off a wrinkling grimace. "Who are you? Show yourself!" she angrily demanded in a snarl. No response came to her, and all was silent in the woodland, save for the whistling of the wind through the treetops. "Puh!" the captain eventually bellowed, her horn losing its glow. She motioned with one of her front hooves for her troops to continue forward. "Soldiers, come on. Wherever that voice came from, I bet its words are hollow and nothing more." "But, Captain-" Milkweed tried to speak with great hesitation in his tone. He would have finished talking about what he had on his mind, had Cert not then cast a small glare his way. "Just keep your guard up and eyes open," she commanded. "I have a feeling magic had something to do with what we just heard, but I doubt we're in for any real trouble we can't handle. This is a sign that we're close. Now, keep going." Her troops did as they were told with a mixture of grunts and silent groans. They marched onward, trying their best to forget the intimidating sound of the voice. It was a few minutes' worth of walking before the last of them had allowed their guard to drop again, if only slightly. The tranquility of their journey was interrupted only when Milkweed stopped as a bright sight caught his eye. "Guys... what's that?" he inquired, pointing his hoof upward. Stopping, all the drones looked his way, then to whatever it was he had motioned to. What befell their sight was a large, blooming flower with striking crimson petals lined along its center, sitting upon the part of a tree's upper branches. Twisting vines made up its stem, and the head of the plant itself seemed to sway to and fro like a pendulum. It was when the last of the changelings started staring at it that, without warning, the middle of the flower suddenly split wide open vertically, revealing a maw in the place of its center. A large, circular maw filled with nothing but sharpened teeth that glimmered like gems in what little sunlight showed through the treetops. Emitting a shrill screech that curdled the blood in their veins, the plant's head suddenly extended, shooting down toward the changelings below with the speed of a cracked whip. It's intended target was Milkweed. Seeing what was heading his way, his nerve broke and he flinched back, his hooves covering his squealing face. It was practically upon him when Cert herself, flying his way on buzzing wings, came charging in with her horn aglow. Slicing effortlessly through the stem behind its head, Cert's horn decapitated the plant fully. Falling limply to the floor as the body it was once attached to retracted back to where it originated from, the flower head's teeth gnashing several times before it finally went still. Cert was taking her first deep breath of relief after the moment ended when Beetlewing shouted something to the group. "There's more of them!" Moments after he spoke, it was plain to see that he was right. Erupting from the soil, bursting forth from the bushes, and again sprouting from the green tops of the trees, deadly, lively plants of all kind set themselves upon the group. Predatory flowers, snaking vines, and great shoots with leaves coated in long thorns and quills were just a taste of the variety of plant life that emerged. Getting into combative positions, the changelings started fighting for their lives. The plants were burned away and torn asunder by the magic. They were sliced in two whenever they grew close enough, and then trampled on into dust. But still more came, popping out of the earth around their destroyed brethren and crawling over them in their single-mindedness to reach their prey. "Fight on!" Cert roared, burning a twisting, mouth-tipped vine once charging in front of her to ash. She turned her head just in time to see one of the giant nettles twitch its leaves back, then rapidly thrust one of them her way from far off. In that one motion, the animated plant flung three of its needles at her like a hail of darts, and with deadly precision, Cert was hit by them all in her lower left side, where her armor didn't reach. The sting of them penetrating her flesh was a sudden, crisp, agonizing sensation all in one; white-hot and burning. As they impacted against her, she was sent off of her feet by the force of them. "Captain!" A voice went out, right before a new sensation of hole-filled hooves grabbed ahold of her falling form. Looking up, it didn't take Cert a second to realize Beetlewing had caught her with his surprised cry. Ducking themselves down before more of the plants could target either of them, he looked to her fearfully. "Captain, are you okay?" "Th-that... hurt..." she grunted through gritted teeth, before prying her soldier's forelegs off of her body when she felt a surge of strength come back to her. "I'm fine, Beetlewing. Get back to helping the others." Nodding, Beetlewing left Cert to do as she commanded. Within no time his horn was once more glowing with green energy and was blasting fiery magics at the plants, starting with the one that had harmed his captain. The smoldering remains of the prickly nettle fell to the ground in a smoking heap, but its fellow attackers still kept coming like an indomitable swarm. The changelings fought on, determined not to fall to them. As they did this, Cert looked to the needles sticking out of her body, vivid, fiery pain filling her entire mind from just them still being planted there. Putting her fanged teeth to the objects with haste, she pulled each out from her chitinous hide one by one as her team covered her. When she spat out the final one she stood up, ready to continue the fight. As she was about to blast and cut at the plants alongside her comrades, a sudden weakness overtook her with the speed and ferocity of the nettle's needles, and she dropped once more to the forest's floor. Gritting her teeth together until her gums hurt, Cert tried to lift herself up, but to no avail when her hind legs failed to move. She was trying even still when a sudden, frantic cry went out from Cricket. "There's too many! W-we blast them to pieces, and more come! We can't stop them! Wh-what do we do?" "We... we've got to run! This is hopeless!" next came the panicked voice of Milkweed. He let out a screech as he narrowly avoided a series of barbed needles that flew his way like a hail of flechettes. The projectiles passed him and hit the ground instead, but dread had claimed his mind worse than any wound could provide. "If we stay, we'll die! Run! Run!" "No!" commanded Cert in a growl, her soldiers already turning tail and scrambling over one another to escape the forest of death. "Don't flee! Keep fighting!" But almost as though she hadn't even said anything, it appeared as though her words fell onto deaf ears. The changelings all ran off in the direction opposite of where she lay, and what few did stay behind for a few brief seconds soon joined them. Their bodies all vanished through the brush that lined the trees, and the sounds of their cries soon died down as they began to settle. "Cowards! Come back here! Come... back..." Cert continued to call out in vain, and her weakened voice trailed off before ceasing altogether. The ghastly quiet that then fell about like a fog made it quickly become apparent that none of the soldiers were going to return, and it was swiftly replaced with the rustling noises of the plants growing closer to her position unmolested. They quickly came into her view, and all of them surrounded her, peering down at her with faceless heads. Accepting what was surely to be her demise, Cert bit her lip and shut her eyes. Seconds passed, but nothing happened. Then minutes. The changeling opened her eyes when she noticed that she had not become plant food in that time, and the first thing she witnessed upon doing so was their sudden departure from herself. Retracting on their stalks and eventually vanishing either back into the ground from where they had appeared from, or transforming back into the various scenery once thought harmless, utter silence was all that remained when the last one left Cert's side and ceased its movement. Her brow furrowing in confusion, Cert knew not what was going on, and quickly decided now was the best time to try and escape back to her fellow soldiers. By now her unresponsive lower legs had gone almost completely numb as well, she also realized how troubling that could be, so she thought it would be best to resort to crawling. She was only a minute and a scarce few feet along when the sound of light footsteps brushing over grass and leaves made her turn around. And the creature she saw exit from behind the wide trunk of a distant tree caught her by utter surprise. What was coming her way at a snail's pace looked somewhat like a male deer, possessing narrow hindquarters but also a thick, masculine front. Protruding from his head were a set of thin, branch-like antlers that grew to an incredible length not known by regular deer, especially when compared to the bucks at the village Cert and her soldiers previously stopped by. They curled and twisted in various ways, and were covered in an abundance of leaves and vines, just like that of the forest itself. What was perhaps most notable about him, though, was the fact that he was not made of flesh and blood, but what appeared to be... bark and wood. Upon his face were a pair of glowing, amber eyes set in a glowering stare, and they looked at Cert directly. Whatever he was, this creature bore an appearance deserving nothing short of worry, fear or awe to those who had the capacity to witness its majesty. Instead of possessing any of those looks, Cert had on a fangs-bared visage of pure, seething rage. Without warning her horn lit up and she cast a destructive spell at him with a screaming roar. Expunged from her horn was a baleful green flame, and it directly hit the fore of her target with the speed of a bolt of lightning. In the briefest of flashes, the deer's head exploded into a smoky green cloud of burnt splinters that scattered about the woodland. As his headless form stumbled about for a few seconds in a manner akin to a dizzied drunkard, Cert, panting from the effort used to conjure her spell, gave off a wicked, and immensely satisfied grin. Her victorious smirk vanished, however, as the deer's wooden body stabilized and regained its previous posture, something plantlike also growing forth from the smoldering stump. The petal-esque protrusions that began to emerge were like the shape of a bud on the end of a tree branch in spring, and after growing into a large enough form, they split apart like a blooming flower. They soon after wilted and fell to the soil of the forest floor, revealing a new head, exactly like the one Cert though she had destroyed, had emerged from it fully formed. His antlers growing at his crown and curling back into the unkempt, but regal shapes they were before, the deer - or whatever the heck it really was - opened his glowing amber eyes again and blinked them a few times with a hum. He then aimed a fairly vexed glare at the startled Cert. "Lest you wish not for my aid," he began in a deep, though gentle voice, "you would be wise not to try that again." Cert had no words to use. Even if she did at that exact moment, her throat would not have allowed them to exit her mouth. Her own teal eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates because of what she saw, and the magic once showing brightly at her horn sputtered and failed in her shock. She finally snapped out of it when the creature, having started approaching her further, came right up to her fallen shape and bent his face down to her midsection, near where she was wounded. "Wh-what are you... doing?" Cert's query came in a hiss. His view turning to her face, the deer hummed again. "The nettles' toxins are running through your veins," he almost casually spoke. "You are wounded and poisoned, and it appears as though your brothers and sisters will not be coming back to retrieve you and tend to your matters with their own skills. I can already hear them all agreeing to flee back to their 'queen'." "How? How?" she questioned, blatantly furious. "The same way I bore witness to your arrival," he responded, sternly peeking at her face once more after having finished his examination. "I see and hear all that happens in this forest. It is but an extension of my will; an extra set of eyes and ears I can use to view all happenings from within the sacred territory that I defend against all malevolent beings, such as yourself." His irritated stare ended after a few seconds and he lifted his head back up to its full, towering height. "Do you wish for me to grant you the care and hospitality you require, or not? My sense of compassion may be something I cannot easily ignore, but should you will it, I would gladly leave you here to fend for yourself." Cert looked down to the lower half of her body. She tried to move her hind legs with a grunt, and then the wings on her back, but they still wouldn't respond. A terrible, foreboding feeling came to her next, and she was unable to shake it. "They really have left me, haven't they?" she inquired. "Yes," he bluntly answered. Cert's brow furrowed angrily and she stared in the direction she last saw her troops flee to. "Undisciplined rabble," she spat their way, wherever they were now. It was but a moment later when her disdainful view went back to the deer. "I would rather suffer much more terrible injuries than this than accept anything from you. So if you're not here to finish me off, then leave me be." The guardian puckered his lips and sighed in disappointment. "Suit yourself," he calmly spoke, "and may only luck shine upon you. It fills me with sorrow to just leave you here, where you will surely have to fend against all manners of predators and nature's own elements by your lone self. But if this is your final decision, I shall respect your words and not intervene. Fair thee well, 'changeling'." With a snort and a nod, the deer turned around and began walking back in the direction he appeared from. Still holding her glare, Cert was more than content to be left alone. That is until she realized that she really did have absolutely no practical way to leave. A limited method to move, and very little at her disposal to defend herself from the nocturnal beasts that no doubt made this part of the forest their home. Biting her lip, she stared at the deer who was now nearly a dozen meters from her. A thousand thoughts telling her to keep her trap shut tore at her mind, but with the image of her very survival being at stake, she drowned out their droning and swallowed her pride with them. "Wait!" she finally called out, just before his shape could disappear behind one of the trees he had previously emerged from. Halting, the deer of wood turned his head to the changeling in an expecting way. With great reluctance, a defeated sigh escaped Cert's mouth and her horned head sunk to the long grass making up the ground beneath it. "I changed my mind. I... I accept your help." The deer's lips curled upward, showing off a victorious smile. Trotting happily over to her on his thin, lengthy legs, he was once more by her side in mere seconds. "Truly?" he inquired upon reaching her. Cert gave off another icy glare at him, but her response was of a dissimilar, if not sardonic variety. " I... graciously accept your help..." Upon hearing this, the being looked like he had just experienced a friendly joke from the changeling more than a spew of dry sarcasm. Still keeping his joyful, if not smug expression, the guardian's muzzle turned to the dirt, which exposed his antlers to Cert. "If that is now your final decision, then get onto my antlers. I will carry you to a safer and more comfortable spot." Looking at them long and hard, the changeling eyed his grand, horn-esque protrusions for a good minute. With some hesitation in her movement, she grabbed onto the nearest part of them and hoisted the rest of her limp body onto their fold. With how some of the base parts of the antlers extended from their main body like prongs, she found plenty of balance in resting within them. When he knew she was set, the deer lifted his head up. "Hold on tightly," he commanded next. Just as she did as he said and gripped hard onto what she could hold, the deer began trotting off with her into the deeper portions of the woodland, the wind at their back and a rather gleeful visage shining on the deer's face.