//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: The Old Village // Story: Noble and Free // by Kaffeina //------------------------------// Chapter Two The Old Village Leaves crunched beneath hooves for the second time since eternity had left the forest. Soft voices carried on the wind, for the second time once more. Young light scattered through the leaves, fresh winds rustled leaves, and legs younger than anything the forest the had seen in a very very long time carried the hooves. At the head of the small herd of ponies, a lavender unicorn was peering in wonder at the forest. Trees thicker than any existing in the Everfree were scattered throughout the forest, and smaller flora, blocked her view. Twilight Sparkle gasped as she looked around her, the princess had warned her the forest was different, but she had not expected such an intense feeling of pure serenity. Her eye lids dropped and her breathing slowed as she took it all in. Her companions slowed as well and the young mare couldn't shake off the feeling. Nothing in Equestria, nor anywhere else, had ever made her feel so at ease. The group walked on, slowly but surely, and arrived at the ruins sometime later. The mare stared at the sign, covered in vines and dead leaves, the unfamiliar words sparking her curiosity. She pressed her hoof against the lettering and the wood groaned, the deep but smooth grooves interrupting her hoof movements slightly as she moved the vines out of the way to look at the beautifully intricate, curving, and flowering design on it's edges. She gasped as she saw the corner of the sign itself, covered in lines. Tally marks, a bunch of small tally marks. She set herself to counting them as quickly as she could, her companions wandering through the rest of the ruins, staring in wonder. After a few moments, the young pony whispered to herself. "327?" She looked around at the ruined houses, trees and vines covering them, and noticed similar groups of marks. Whatever was being counted, she wasn't sure, but it was a huge amount. Lifting up a notepad with her magic, and a quill, she started noting the number of groups. After losing track, she moved past the sign. The mare felt a weight, a weight of emotion, pressing down on her. Love and pure daunting loneliness. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she moved into the closest house. The floorboards were covered in grass, vines, bushes, and even saplings broke through the floor and even the walls. As she took in the sight, she noted a bookcase, half broken, and moved towards it. Halfway buried underneath a broken shelf, a dusty, yellow, and torn book lay before her. She touched it with her hoof, and thanked Celestia when the book didn't rip apart. The cover was nothing spectacular, a faded deep green. What was inside, however, was far more interesting. Foreign words and pictures greeted her eyes as they widened in disbelief. Detailed on the page before her was some sort of creature, tall and graceful with sharp pointed ears. It looked eerily similar to one of the creatures a pony from her town was so impossibly obsessed with, however, this creature seemed to be more elegant in her eyes. The description above, which she could not read, baffled her. However, she was fairly certain of the creature's name. Ξωτικά. Such a strange name, for an equally strange creature, she thought. The mare gently placed the book in the saddlebag at her side. Fairly certain touching it directly could hurt the book, she was thankful for her education in magic as she cast the preservation spells she knew on the book as it rested in her bag. Once she was done, the unicorn began moving the rest of the broken shelves, stowing the other books away in the same manner in the first. Her saddlebag filled, and her curiosity burning, she began writing down every detail of the structure she was in. It was, as far as she knew, not built for ponies or anything else she knew of. The door was too thin for a minotaur, and far taller than would be necessary for a pony, deer, or anything else. The walls weren't put together like the ones in town, they looked as if the had been grown together. The windows were the only thing she could confidently argue were the same as those she had seen, aside from their height. The mare looked up at the broken ceiling and something caught her eye. Part of the roof that wasn't broken seemed to meet flawlessly with the tree, as if the tree had grown inside the house and then grew over the wood itself. At first, she had believed the trees had grown after this place had become a ruin, but now she wasn't quite so certain. Burning with curiosity, she sketched out a diagram on her notepad and left the house. "Have you gathered any books or any artifacts from the other houses?" the lavender unicorn asked the nearest pony, a young guard with a light yellow coat. Her turned slowly towards her and gave a brief nod. "Yes, the princess informed us that you may want to examine as much as you can while you were here and explicitly told us to gather everything into the carriage instead of letting you 'get absorbed for hours where you stood'," the guard said, lightly chuckling as the mare's face went red and she realized she had almost done just that inside the ruined house. Looking around and then up to the sky, she coughed. "Er, I think we should head back to Ponyville," she said. The guard chuckled again and nodded. The rest of the company gathered up and Twilight climbed into the carriage, immediately absorbing herself in the diagrams and pictures of the first book she had found. The carriage, now heavier than it had been upon arrival, crunched through leaves as the guards pulled it along. The trees passed by and she noticed nothing, completely absorbed in her book. If she had looked back, or had one of the guards, they would have noticed a lone figure walking into the ruins behind them, nearly the exact same image the mare had seen in the very book she was now staring at. None of them did, nor did the figure look back towards them as it brushed it's hand against the decrepit sign, tracing the tally marks with it's fingers. The figure's shoulder slumped and it disappeared behind the trees as the carriage turned. As the carriage moved along, the sun slowly began to sink towards the horizon, the light dimming oh so slowly as dusk set upon the forest and, to the figure's disbelief, it was lit with the light of thousands of stars and swarms of fireflies. To the south of the ruined village and the moving carriage, a castle lay upon a massive mountain's side. The tallest tower, just below the top of the very mountain itself, shone like a star as the moon began to rise from the horizon. Lights sprinkled on across the city beneath the castle itself. The alabaster alicorn smiled as a deep blue alicorn gave her a bright smile as well, Luna's eyes still hid the pain of the past, something possibly only Celestia herself could see. In hopes her sister would heal, and hopes that she would forgive her, the solar diarch said nothing as her sister departed from the room. As the door closed behind her sister, the tall hourglass in the corner having been flipped to track the hours of the night, Celestia moved towards the balcony and gazed out upon the lands that lay before her. This was her home, the place she loved so dearly, full of ponies and creatures who lived to their fullest. She was proud, yes, but she still hurt. For the place she called home, she had to abandon her only sister. Indeed, it had cost her far more than she had ever believed it would, as young and naïve as she had been, but she couldn't change the past nor did she want to. The solar diarch's smile never reached her eyes as she gazed forlornly on the starry night her only family had created for the first time in a thousand years. There were others like her, others who had lived a terribly long time, but none could fully understand why she decided as she had, nor why she continued going. Her sister, perhaps, could to some extent, yet none would understand how those sacrifices felt. That night, Celestia went to bed with a heavy heart. That night, just a short distance from the city beneath the castle, a library inside of a tree was alit the entire night. One poor young dragon's eyes drooped heavily as "his" caretaker, he inwardly scoffed at that one, kept him up far later than he felt he really should be up. The moon had risen HOURS ago, and he really couldn't understand how Twilight even managed this. Was she secretly draining cups of coffee every few minutes? The same mare, having returned hours ago with what she had literally called treasures, was scratching away on the chalkboard in the main room of the library. Detailed on the chalkboard itself was a mildly crude reproduction of the picture from one of the books she had brought back. To Spike, he honestly had no clue what it meant, though clearly Twilight didn't either by the way she was going through both the books in horrible condition and the ones from the library itself. However, her notes had already filled numerous bits of parchment and scrolls. Spike yawned heavily and made a mental note, which he immediately forgot when he yawned yet again a second later, to buy more quills, ink, and paper. Lots of it, to be exact. She was going to be at this for days, that much he knew, and he wasn't going to be getting very much sleep. He'd have to sneak some naps in, although he was used to that it was still a slight bit annoying to have to do it again now. I wish we could've gone longer without doing this again, he muttered somewhat sarcastically in his head. Irritated as he was, he didn't exactly blame her for being curious, after all, how often does a massive forest crop up overnight without, as far as he knew, magic. Spike's head lulled to the side, a small amount of drool escaping his mouth as he finally passed out. Without a single word, and while still absorbed in her book, Twilight's pink magic pulled the blanket next to the small dragon over him and he grabbed it, rolling onto his side. The lavender pony kept reading, and after some time, the sun began to rise and sunlight peeked in through the windows of the library. She copied another diagram onto the chalkboard and frowned at it. As far as she could tell, these creatures had been amazingly apt at living with nature, well beyond ponies and perhaps beyond the deer or other species that lived in the woods. Yet, despite that, they were most evidently gone. There was no trace of an actual living one of them, at least in the forest she presumed. They could be elsewhere. Looking outside, she blinked as she realized morning had already come. The young mare scrambled as she dug a quill out from underneath her now exceedingly cluttered table. Dear Princess Celestia, As you asked me to, I went with the guards to the forest that appeared last night. The forest itself was gorgeous, so serene and mystical, perhaps as if it had never come from Equus in its entirety. Of course, while there I discovered a variety of different texts and artifacts amongst the decrepit buildings. If you have time today, I'd like to go over what I've found. That is, if it isn't any trouble. If it is, perhaps you could send my brother. He is a captain of your guard so I'm certain he'll give you the best and most accurate recantation of the information I have. Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle Celestia smiled as the letter appeared before her. Sending Twilight was the right decision after all, though she wasn't sure she herself could take the information in person. The forest was causing a bit of a stir and she had to calm it down so perhaps... "Shining Armor?" The guard in question stood at attention. "Yes, your highness?" "I believe I have a job for you."