Twilight Gets a Puppy
Season 3
By TDR
Season 3 Interlude,
'Moon Lit Wings'
[ Journal entry one, translated to modern Equestrian by Twilight Sparkle]
I don't know why I'm bothering to write this. I suppose it's in some vain hope that some day she might read this and know that I was thinking about her in the end.
My last hope is here. It could be for nothing, that Lunar servant could have been lying, but in truth he's still dead and I have no other options.
I suppose I should explain this to any one else reading this. I'm not foolish enough to think my wife would be the first to find it, I only hope that she receives it if I fail.
My name is Terry Cairn, I am... was, an earth pony captain in the Solar Guard. One of the elite units tasked with hunting down the last of the Nightmare's forces. Particularly the monstrosities known as Witch Wolves. My last endeavor was a joint operation with a flock of griffons against a small pack that had sprung up in a little hamlet called Hollow Shades. There were three of the creatures. A male, a female, and a young one.
I had been part of teams that had killed a great number of these monsters. We were mostly earth ponies and pegasi, given their magic eating the only unicorns we had were medics who remained away from the actual fighting. Princess Celestia and a number of other gods were also hunting down the threats given the nature of what they could do a whole team of ponies might not be able to beat them, but like most things the gods were far more than enough to deal with them. My team had a total of six kills, the highest of any unit and we were cocky as Tartarus about that.
The brains back at HQ thought the whole situation was odd, they were trying to figure out where all of these witch wolves came from. If the Nightmare had this many, why would she not use them all on us at once. Our forces were hard pressed to deal with two or three of these beasts at a time. An orderly force of the hundreds we have been overpowering and would have wiped out everything that stood against her.
I found out why personally.
We encountered the beasts in Hollow Shades. We fought them and we killed them. There were injuries of course. I for one took a nasty bite on the shoulder, I was likely going to be one of the casualties of the conflict if I hadn't been saved by a griffon hen who took the beasts attack on me as an opportunity to drive a spear through it's eye. I got to watch the life fade from it before it's jaw was removed from my shoulder.
While I didn't like being thought of as bait to these damn cat birds, I did recall to thank her for the save.
My wound was treated and I was given leave to recover.
So of course I went home.
Cinnamon Teal was waiting for me.
My wife is a farmer in a bit of a niche market. Equestria has a export with poultry farmers to the griffon empire. It's rather disturbing to think they eat meat, but the bits are good and they are sent some where else still alive to be shipped so we don't have to think about it much.
I spent several weeks in that mares loving embrace before the first problems happened. At first it was only a few of our magical devices failing around us. Nothing drastic. Soon I started becoming sick constantly. I couldn't hold anything down. The medical scans the towns doctors preformed did nothing and only made me feel worse.
Then one morning I awoke to find myself in the duck pen with dozens of half eaten corpses of the foul around me, and the taste of blood on my lips.
Cinnamon Teal had seen what happened and watched me change.
I left immediately, not wanting to put her in any sort of danger. She begged me not to go, to stay and seek help, but I refused to risk it.
My travels after that were mostly uninteresting. I changed a few more times drew the attention of the guard here and there, I tracked down a number of members of the Lunar Republic, including a mage who told me where their goddess had found the first moon dogs as they called them.
And so here I was. The dark continent, New Holland. Before it was discovered there was a indigenous people here, prisoners used to be dumped off to try and survive. Given nearly everything in this place from the sea life to the smaller creatures was able to, or at least tried to, kill ponies, not to mention the larger wild life, no one ever expected the prisoners to live very long. In most cases they were right, but enough survived that there was now a native population of ponies who lived there. A shipping route was run from Equestria to the port city of Saxton Hale as the place was a gold mine of resources and there was always a noble or two looking to capitalize on that.
None of that really matters in truth. I knew I was being followed. I managed to jump an earlier ship before she caught up with me but Cinnamon Teal was tracking me down.... as was a contingent of Guards. Some pony must have put together that I was cursed and informed the Guard.
I hear the drums echoing tonight. The heavy beat of the waves against the hull as we approach the shore thudding almost in time, drowning out the whispers of quiet conversation going on around me from others looking to disembark.
Given that it was guard business the next ship was likely right behind this one. She would be coming in around twelve thirty. Maybe sooner, the Princess Bride was a faster ship than the old steamer I had rode on.
I needed to be elsewhere when they got here, both to protect Cinni and to avoid the guards coming after me.
[ Journal entry six, translated to modern by Twilight Sparkle, editors note most of the journal has been damaged and a great number of the entries are simply the writer stating that there was no change or that he was still searching, or more personal messages to his wife, and have thus been left untranslated as irrelevant.]
It's been days and I'm no closer to anything. There's tribes deeper inland that might know something. But still I know I'm being followed.
Still I saw a sign.
A shadow hawk.
These dark birds are rare, the reverse of a phoenix, birds composed out of mostly shadow looking like little more than small pieces of the night sky. During the war they were considered a bad omen and were killed on sight and hunted. No pony had seen one for years, but here..
It might still be a bad sign, it might be a blessing.
The creatures moonlit wings reflected the stars that might guide me towards salvation.
My hope blossomed again.
If one of those birds was here, surely the Nightmare had been here as well and there may be a cure to this curse.
[ Journal entry eight, translated to modern by Twilight Sparkle]
I stopped an old mare along the way.
The dark furred unicorn clearly had seen better years. One milky white eye stared at me, the other as far as I could tell was no longer in it's socket. The discussion was rather one sided at first though after she got a look at me she was quite talkative.
I had changed after that first transformation, though I had hardly noticed until much later. I had fangs, my ears had lengthened and my fur had become a great deal shaggier, not hard to keep hidden save for the fact that there were two glowing orbs of light resembling the moon that floated above my longer ears.
I had taken to wearing large hats and hoods to try an hide, but unless my ears remained flat to my head the lights would show up over the hat or hood.
I had been only hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies about the source of the 'moon dogs'. What I found was a mare who had been to the place where they all vanished.
I had a location now, a few days travel away, there had to be something there. She told me of a shaman that lived in the area that might be able to help. A zebra that had fled the destruction of her homeland years ago when the Nightmare and her forces rolled over their homeland. While many Zebra fled to Equestria and had settled down in an area near Cape Cod, this one had come out here.
Looking to the old mare no further words were exchanged, she turned to me as if to say, 'hurry colt it's waiting there for you,'
And with that I set off again.
[ Journal entry 10, translated to modern by Twilight Sparkle]
I had been here a week and a half.
I hope you will be reading this Cinni.
It had taken a lot to drag me away from you.
If not for the idea I might hurt you, there's nothing that a million stallions or more could ever do.
But here I am trooping through mire and desert and savanna trying to find a cure so we can be together finally.
It seems on top of all that I showed up here in the rainy season.
I had stopped by a small village the locals called Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa. They were natural and untouched by pegasi magic, thus keeping me from changing into that monster.
When this is all over.... when this is all over, and I'm cured, we're gonna take the time to do the things we never have..... maybe... maybe one or two foals wouldn't be bad... not with you....
I love you Cinni. ..
[ Journal entry 13, translated to modern by Twilight Sparkle]
I was woken by howling.
The wild dogs crying out in the night, likely they grew restless longing for some solitary company.
The worst part about this was that I could understand them. I knew what they wanted. The calls of a hunt the calls of the ones in heat, the cries of the pack finding prey.
It hurt.
I could hear them and understand them and part of me wanted to join them. To go with the pack, to hunt and live. The creature inside of me wasn't a loner. Being alone meant it was sick or injured and had been abandoned. The feelings of seeking out this pack to join it were immense.
I kept myself from joining barely.
I know I must do whats right, sure as the Canterhorn rises like the sun over the Unicorn Range.
The beast seemed displeased by this. It was getting harder to keep it calm, simply walking this place had allowed me to draw in the magic of the land. A magic that was feeding it's next release.
I had to continue I had to hurry.
I seek to cure what's deep inside, I'm frightened by this thing I have become.
[ Journal entry 16, translated to modern by Twilight Sparkle]
She's dead.
The shamaness I came out here to find. She's dead.
Her body lay in her home, dried from the heat and the long dead fire in the center of the hut. The bugs had not even made it to her due to the charms and protections I had destroyed coming in here. The excess magic however was enough. I could feel the beast clawing at the inside of me struggling to get free. My last hope was gone. The zebra mare had no books, no notes, nothing I could find that might have anything to do with the old ruined village on the hill.
That place was stripped bare, looking nothing more than a town that all the inhabitants decided to pack up and move out of. Only the size of the doors and the buildings gave me a clue that this might have been the moon dogs first home
And now I was writing my last. I say this because the guards are here.
But it's worse.
Princess Celestia is here as well.
The magic flowing around her is far to much I can.. I can't stop the change.... they're going to destroy me and I was this close, I found the source …. but for nothing.....
So are you … Why did you come Cinni.... I told you to stay home.... that I got to see you a last time.... even from the broken window of this old hut.....
[ several torn pages follow filled with unintelligible scribbles follow before the last words. ]
Cinni... I'm sorry....
[The last page of the journal is scribbled with a note, one in different hoof writing than the earlier parts.]
She killed him.
The beast he was stepped out of the hut, it didn't even attack it just stood there and rather than allowing it a chance or listening to me at all she killed him.
The damn bitches horn lit up and the bucking sun it self vaporized him.
He wasn't attacking her, he wasn't hurting any pony. She wouldn't listen to me, none of the damn fools would. And now... Terry's dead.
She tired to say something after the murdered him, some stupid comfort or placating words or some bullshit about the greater good.
Buck that.
I nearly had a guard skewer me when I spat in her face and told her exactly what I thought of her.
They left after that. She offered me passage back but I'm not going back. I found his journal.... his last words to me.... I know why he came here what he was trying to do.
I'm sending this to the that fat sun sucking whore. So she can see, so SHE CAN SEE, she killed an innocent! One that wasn't a threat, one who was trying to save himself.
Buck Equestria and that stupid sun bitch.
I HOPE SHE READS THIS... and knows how much one of her precious little ponies hates her.
I'm going back up to the port. I'll mail this journal to Whinnysor. Then I'm going to find a spot and join Terry... there's nothing but spite left for me here any way.
Cinnamon Teal