//------------------------------// // Encase // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// As the day passed, the rains mercifully didn’t return… but neither did the sun. A blanket of grayness hung low over the world, infecting even the trees with dim, monotonous shade. Starlight plodded on regardless, her little hooves beginning to drag across the forest floor. Trees surrounded her, tall and straight and with limbs interlocking in a web of crossroads high above. No wind blew through them or caused them to sway, but the forest was hardly silent. Exotic birds trilled deeply, crows and woodpeckers and hidden things that gargled deeply with their throats. But all of it was in the treetops. On the ground, Starlight was silent and alone. She broke the silence with a sneeze, her still-wet fur clinging oppressively to her back. Wiping her nose on a foreleg, she looked around without stopping, unable to see more than a few dozen meters in any direction due to the density of the trees. Aside from fallen branches and scattered boulders, the way was clear, at least. Starlight couldn’t feel a path beneath her, instead trusting her instincts and traveling almost imperceptibly downhill. With the sun hidden behind a wall of gray, she had no way of orienting herself save for the slope of the earth. Ironically, her goal was still to find water. Dully, she popped a few drying berries into her mouth and contemplated where she was headed. At this rate, she’d find herself back by the lake… two streams crossed, yes, but then what? If it was indeed a mountain lake, the odds were good it had no way out. She could remain indefinitely trapped in that crater until she climbed, and then… what then? Suddenly, Starlight broke out from the forest cover. A river of loose, jagged stones lay in her path, winding its way all the way up into a fold between two mountain walls. An avalanche zone, evidently. She briefly considered climbing it, but the land above looked just as gray and foreboding as the sky that touched it. Not wanting to stay in an area where something might fall and crush her, the filly plodded onwards, thoughts of grayness beginning to fill her head. Rain had been rare, growing up. Her home had been near a desert, and while the pegasus ponies had been convinced that watering it was important, there had always been a degree of stinginess to the job. Rain had been something to rejoice over. Still, it had looked nothing like this - fluffy, swirly white clouds that dumped their payload when bounced on and were carted away. These clouds were nothing like that… if they could be called clouds at all. They completely lacked any defining features, quantifiable not in number but by volume. No matter how hard Starlight stared, leaning up and glancing past the sea of branches, they were one and the same, without bottom or edge, sans even a single swirl or spiral etched into them to show the world their purpose. They were just gray… not as an adjective, but an incarnation. And that grayness was beginning to infect Starlight’s mood, too. With sullen steps, she dragged one hoof after the other, occasionally stopping to sniffle as she wearily hiked further into the forest. Starlight Glimmer couldn't go on. Miserably, she lay flat on her stomach, staring at the perfectly smooth lake before her. It was a different lake than the one she had seen before, with a short cliff to her right that swiftly petered out. She looked at it, told her legs to move, and they didn't. For all the chills she had endured in the caves spanning the peaks of the mountains, nothing compared to this. She had lain on bare stone, protected by nothing but her blanket and her fuzzy coat. She had walked miles through sunless depths, with no source of warmth save for her own little body. Never, though, had she been wet and unable to dry off. The water hugged her like a squid, half-evaporating and refusing to finish the job. Every time she imagined it, thoughts of her wet blanket filled her mind instead - how was she supposed to fix that? Without it, she couldn't stay warm. Without it, she couldn't- Starlight yelped as a thick drop struck her squarely in the muzzle, spurring her legs into action. Within seconds, the rain had returned, morphing into an extension of the mist, an impenetrable curtain of drops individually too thin to see yet together capable of soaking anything and everything. The filly panicked, shivered, hissed, and cried, fleeing along the short, stony bank along the cliff floor. It narrowed as she ran, quickly trapping her with a wall on her right and the rippling, disturbed surface of the wide lake on the left. Starlight sneezed violently, looking around with wide eyes at the bank on which she stood. It was backtrack or be trapped... and she didn't remember having recently passed any good hiding places. Frozen, Starlight stood, her decision-making having failed her. A split second later, her horn flashed, and suddenly the air where she had been standing was replaced with a block of crystal. Inside, a lilac filly blinked. The material had formed around her, by instinct or otherwise. Her panic held her frozen for a minute longer... during which she realized she didn't need to breathe. The crystal seemed to respire for her, placing the feeling of cool, rainy air in her lungs without even a rise and fall of her chest. She didn't think about what would happen if she had to sneeze. The misty rain silently made land on top of the prism, trickling its way down the sides in thick rivulets that reminded Starlight of looking out a window... if the window was made of teal stained glass. As her heartrate slowed and her brain took stock of the situation, she realized two things: she was still wet, but she wasn't getting any wetter. Mentally, Starlight felt her horn. It was shimmering, keeping her protective cage in existence. While putting a pony inside a block was an entirely new experience to her, she assumed the usual rules for making gems still applied. Simpler is easier. Stop concentrating, and they disappear. A little more taxing than levitation... which was easy in a pinch, but awful to sustain without breaks for an extended amount of time. Still, Starlight was far from tired. She could probably keep it up a while longer. As she thought that, the rain intensified, picking up until the beat of drops against her shield was audible and even tangible. She shivered within the block, narrowed her eyes, and resigned herself to a long, drawn-out wait. Several minutes into her vigil, something caught her attention. In the lake in front of her, a branch was floating past. Its movement was surprisingly rapid, from which Starlight could only deduce one thing: the lake must have a current. That meant it had an exit. There was somewhere further for her to go. With a rush of determination, Starlight steeled herself. Her horn pulsed, and the protective crystal shield around her vanished, immediately exposing her to pelting rain and a light wind. She cried out in shock and annoyance, but didn't break her concentration, instead forming a wide, flat slab of crystal on the ground in front of her. With careful skill, she maintained the sheet, lifting it in her telekinesis and holding it above her head like an umbrella. Her horn immediately complained from performing two sustained spells at once. Pushing through the accompanying wince, Starlight blew a raspberry. She was dry, and she could move. Keeping her horn happy could wait. Starlight didn't waste a second of her newfound mobility, kicking into a swift trot on soggy, cold, over-taxed legs. Some part of her knew that she would have to rest hard soon, but that could wait... and for less practical reasons than that she presently had no shelter. She wanted to find out where the current went! Hurriedly, she chased after the branch, its barren twigs still poking up in her misty sight. The path below her shrank so thin, her shield grated against the cliff, each contact causing a few sparks to pop from her horn and her head to tilt as if she'd been slapped. Eventually, she ground to a halt, fuming. The land beneath her completely disappeared. There was nothing but water, all the way up to the cliff. Panting, growling, exhausted, and pained, Starlight stared angrily at the stick that had led her to the dead end... when suddenly, it swerved, turning right and floating straight into the cliff face, where it promptly disappeared. Starlight's eyebrows rose. She leaned out as far over the water as she dared, trying to get a better view of the area the branch had disappeared to. A vertical sliver of black teased at her vision... when a sudden, violent sneeze nearly capsized her, forcing her to throw a hoof into the water to prevent tipping in entirely. Yelping, Starlight righted herself. She threw away her shield and stared, feeling fresh rainwater begin to evaporate off her warm horn. With the frown of an accepting challenger, she relit her horn, pointing it downward at the vanished shore in front of her, and fired. Slowly, a thin bridge materialized out of crystal in front of her, allowing her to progress slightly further along the cliff base. She did so deliberately, refusing to flinch or shudder as the rain drummed against her back... and when she reached the end, a black cave yawned in front of her. She peered around the entrance, eyes adjusting to the light... and with a sudden burst of smugness, saw that there was an outcropping of rock several hooflengths above the flowing water, flat and dry and tucked nicely against the wave wall. Starlight coiled her legs and leapt. Her body complained, and the jump didn't go quite as far as she intended it to... but the upper half of her body still landed cleanly on the platform. Scrabbling, she wheezed as the hard edge dug into her belly and her hind legs met water, kicking and splashing as she tried to haul herself up. The crystal behind her vanished in a puff of magic as she did so, and soon she was entirely on the platform, saddlebags and all. Starlight stood up, surveying the blackness. She lit her horn, summoning a light spell, and just had time to see that the shelf stretched further back into the cave before a loud pop extinguished her horn in a shower of sparks. Exhausted and pushed to her limit, Starlight fainted, collapsing with her saddlebags still on to the cold stone floor below.