//------------------------------// // 7 - Scar on the Land // Story: The Needle // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// Daring slept that night, but she didn’t rest. When the morning woke her up, the first thing she did was check her rations. She had the expected amount. During breakfast, the only thing anyone said was a comment that they all had the right amount of food. The silence was a mixture of sullen and haunted; no one really wanted to admit what had happened yesterday except for Windrose, who had already said all she could say. Once they finished eating, they quickly moved to break camp. Daring packed up her tent with practiced, almost mechanical ease. Stakes: removed from the ground. Poles: out of the tent, tied up. Tent itself: flattened, rolled up. Everything: collectively stuffed into the bag. Daring zipped up the bag and- She stopped, looking at the bag. She thought back over each step of the process. Yes, she remembered each step, all the way up to breakfast. Nothing was missing. She was safe. She still shivered. When the team quietly reconvened, Daring asked, “Before we go, does anyone have anything to say? About- anything?” Fallende turned to Windrose and said, “Can I see that map you don’t remember making?” “Sure,” said Windrose, tossing her bag to the ground, “but why? Did you see something on it?” She dug through the bag, muttering to herself. “Maybe. I remember a river.” “Aaaaand…” Windrose whispered, “this one?” She pulled out a sheet of parchment, examined it for a brief second, and nodded. “This one.” She unfolded the parchment, revealing the map of the area around the campsite, and tapped a line. “This would be a river, right here. Not far to the west.” “Good,” said Fallende. “Come on. We’re going to that river.” She set off across the valley. Windrose, Rangifera, and Stalwart exchanged glances as Daring trotted after Fallende. “So what’s your plan?” she asked. “Right now?” Fallende replied. “Making sure the river is really there.” It was technically a stream, but it was there. Water trailed lazily down the cliff face, collected in a pool at the bottom, and flowed off into the valley. It was a normal-looking stream by all accounts, but it made Fallende very happy. “Good,” she whispered to herself, grinning. “We should follow the river,” she said to Daring. “That’s our best bet.” “Any reasons why?” It wasn’t a bad idea — you had a constant water source, and if you ever got lost, you could just turn around and follow the river until you knew where you were again — but that idea made the most sense in open wilderness, not a closed-off place like this valley. It would be hard to get lost at all in here. “Duh, yeah. First, rivers go places,” said Fallende. “They can only flow downhill.” She pointed downstream. “So where’s this one going? Why isn’t the valley flooded yet? All that water’s gotta be feeding something. Second, if we ever go loopy again and stray from the river, we’ll know it immediately.” “Some very good reasons why,” Daring said with a nod. Self-evident, even, once it was pointed out. Hard to argue with them. Besides, they were heading north anyway. “Oh, and we probably shouldn’t drink from or touch the water,” Fallende added. “What if it’s an óminnibrunnr?” “A what?” The word was vaguely familiar to Daring, but she couldn’t place it. “A spring of forgetfulness,” Fallende said with an exasperated sigh. “Magic springs are common in Equestria, yeah? We’ve got our own stories. One of those is springs that make you forget stuff. Maybe we came here yesterday, scouted the place out, found the stream, decided to drink from it, and poof.” She made a little popping motion with her hooves. “There go our memories for the past twenty-four hours.” “I don’t know,” Stalwart muttered. “That seems a bit unlikely, and it doesn’t explain everything.” “I’m just trying to be cautious in a place we already know is dangerous,” Fallende said tightly. “There’s a lot about this place and Needle Vale we can’t explain right now, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe.” “Perhaps it is a bit unlikely and it doesn’t explain everything,” said Rangifera, “but doesn’t mean it’s not right, my cautious comrade. I don’t think that’s a spring of forgetfulness, but I’m not taking my chances.” “Me neither,” said Windrose. She scooched an inch or two away from the pool. “But, but you know why.” She flinched, folded her ears back, and looked away. “Stalwart,” said Daring, “just stay away from the water, okay? I’ve had experiences with cursed springs, and believe me, it’s not pleasant on the best of days. It’s not like we’re low on supplies or anything.” Stalwart gave a dubious look at the pool, but shrugged and said, “Fine. I mean, even if you’re wrong, it’s not exactly a hard thing to do, is it? Just stay away from the shore and tread carefully if we ever need to cross it. Do you suppose we’ll need to cross it? Probably not. Where would we need to cross to? The other side of-” “Come on,” said Daring, setting off downstream. “Let’s go.” Between walking through a simple blizzard and walking right next to a river that might possibly wipe her memories and drive her insane if she even touched it, Daring would take the latter every single time. At least she could see. Honestly, the simple low winds and clouds lifted her spirits so much that it wasn’t long before her amnesia had been shoved to the back of her mind and temporarily swept under the rug. If it had never existed at all, Daring supposed she would’ve been fluttering downriver rather than walking. The cold was still wiggling and worming its way beneath her clothes, but it was the brisk kind of cold, not the kind where you could feel your blood turning to ice cubes. No howling wolves, no howling wind. Nothing was making any sound to disturb Daring except the bubbling stream. Bliss. If you overlooked the little amnesia incident, anyway. The stream itself wound its way lazily down the valley, slowly twisting this way and that, always heading north. The banks were never too steep, too narrow, or too rocky; they only risked falling in if they were phenomenally unlucky. Daring glanced at the stream again. It still looked normal, but then, the magic springs that looked like magic springs had all either been commercialized (if they were beneficial), roped off to the public (if they were harmful), or turned into tourist traps (if they looked harmful but were no such thing). She wasn’t going to risk anything. Behind her, she could hear the rest of the group chatting amicably. “So does this all qualify as a forest?” Stalwart asked as they slid down a gravel-covered slope. “It seems a bit sparse to me. Just look at how few trees there are and how much space is between them. I’m a bit surprised there’s so few, actually, trees can germinate each other quite nicely. Perhaps the soil isn’t very conducive to large forests, this valley is pretty isolated and it might run out of nutrients. Or maybe-” “You make maps, my cartographic compatriot,” Rangifera said to Windrose. “Does this qualify as a forest?” “What-? Don’t look at me,” Windrose said defensively. “I just record what goes where, not what it’s called.” “Huh,” said Rangifera. “I would’ve thought that knowing what something’s called would be needed for a mapmaker. In addition to recording what goes where, obviously.” “Well, no, not necessarily,” said Stalwart. “She’s a recorder, not a classifier. A librarian might know that books on, oh, caloric’s arcanodynamics go on these shelves, even though she doesn’t know what caloric’s arcanodynamics are. And she doesn’t need to, not really. As long as she makes sure everything goes in its proper place, which is all she needs to do, she can let other ponies — people, sorry, brain fart — argue about what everything is.” “Does any of this matter?” grumbled Fallende. Her voice sounded like a wound-up elastic band was being plucked. “Well, excuse me for trying to pass the time!” said Stalwart. “No, it really doesn’t. But after you’re walking down a stretch of river for too long, every bend looks just about the same as every other bend, and this is really just a stream, so you get the same effect, only doubly so, because-” “Fine, whatever.” Fallende rolled her eyes. “It’s not a forest, anyway.” “Why not?” “The trees are too far apart, obviously! I mean, look at them. There’s no canopy. A proper forest needs a canopy.” “There’s sort of a canopy.” “If you tilt your head and squint, maybe.” “Ha! So you do admit there’s a bit of a canopy!” “Like one percent of one! A trickle of running water does not a river make.” Daring tuned them out, focusing on the valley again. Trees dotted the floor, growing thicker as they climbed the mountain slopes, and that was about all there was of note. Every now and then, they’d pass a dry patch of rocks, like one might find in a quarry. There was nothing that looked out of place, nothing that made her coat stand on end (either by gut instinct or metaphysically). But she kept her eyes peeled. It didn’t need to be big; she could pick out smaller details as long as she was paying attention, and even something tiny could mean something huge. Still, as the distance dragged on, every foot began to look the same as every other foot. Tree after tree, rock after rock, mountain after mountain. Daring couldn’t shake a feeling of déjà vu. But the wilderness could be like that, especially without landmarks. The only real landmarks close to her at the moment were the trees, and they all looked too similar to each other for navigation. Suddenly, Windrose spoke. “Hey, um, do, do you think we could take a break for lunch? It’s… about noon.” Daring squinted at the sun. Close enough. “Any objections? No? Lunch.” They broke a small ways away from the stream, on a slope of scree with some large boulders. Windrose was sketching something out on her parchment before anyone else had even sat down. Stalwart and Rangifera ate slowly, but Fallende practically wolfed her food down. Daring had to stop herself from following suit; once she paid attention to it, her hunger was nearly unbearable. But with a manageable chill and little wind, they’d warmed themselves up so much through their constant walking that no one even suggested a fire. “You’d think,” Stalwart said, “that after going through a spooky cave and climbing down a spooky cliff into a hidden valley, we’d see a lot more than those two things.” She rubbed an apple against her coat. “This is too nice, too normal for what those things set up. You know what I mean?” “I know what you mean,” said Rangifera. “This is too nice. But I’m not complaining.” She shrugged. “We can handle spooky stuff later down the line. A change in scenery would be nice, though. I swear we’ve seen back-and-forth swerves in the stream ten times.” “I know,” said Daring. She tore off a small chunk of bread from her loaf and swallowed it. “Is it just me, or is this valley a lot longer than it looked from above?” “It’s not just you,” said Windrose, staring intently at her parchment. She’d stopped sketching. “We’re going in circles.” “Going in circles?” Fallende snorted. “We’re following a river, you idiot. We can’t be going in circles.” “Yeah, that, that’s the thing,” said Windrose, looking up. Her voice was a bit shaky, like she was trying and failing to psych herself up. “This river, it, it’s looping. Like, once we reach a certain point, we’re teleported back… I don’t know, a mile upriver. Non-Euclydesdalean geometry.” Absolute silence fell over the group. Everyone stared at Windrose; she swallowed nervously but kept her head high. “Yes, really,” she said to everyone’s unasked question. “Are you sure you’re alright?” asked Fallende. “Remember everything coming downriver?” (Daring quickly thought back; she, at least, did.) “Or maybe-” “That’s crazy,” said Stalwart. “Absurd. Mad. Crazy.” “Oh, yeah? Look, I’ve been mapping this place out, just like Daring asked.” Windrose unfolded the map so everyone could see it.. “And look!” She jabbed at part of the river, close to where they’d exited the cave. “You see this little-notch long-hook feature here, near where we started? It’s repeated — exactly — five times since then!” The river did look like certain parts of it were repeating. Daring took a good long look at the map, trying to recall the trip downriver. It certainly seemed to match up with her memory and she didn’t have any obvious holes. She examined the map more intently. Yes, that part of the river definitely repeated itself. And not just on a large scale, either; Windrose had included a lot of little crinks and jinks in the river’s course, and when Daring looked at the river on a small scale, the crinks and jinks repeated, too. The river was repeating itself, over and over and over. “Just to play draconequus’s advocate,” Daring said tentatively, “could this just be a coincidence?” “Oh, no, there’s more than just that,” said Windrose. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but these, these mountains…” She pointed all around them. “They’re in the same places relative to us since we’ve started. Like the background is repeating.” Rangifera nervously licked her lips as she looked around and up. “You… don’t think that… maybe they have moved, and-” “No, no way, not a chance in Prance,” interrupted Windrose. She sounded a little angrier. “I notice that sort of thing; mountains are landmarks, my talent’s cartography, and landmarks are important in cartography. Like, you see those two peaks, right over there?” She pointed sideways out of the valley. Two smallish, pointy mountain peaks loomed, one of them slightly behind the other. There was a small gap between the two summits. “If we were actually moving, the closer mountain would be blocking the further one by now. But they’ve stayed in that position ever since we started walking.” Stalwart looked at the mountains for a long moment, then looked at Windrose, a “Really?” look plastered all across her face. “They’re probably farther away than you think,” she said. “It’s not like it’s easy to gauge the distance to mountains, special talent or not.” “What does- that have to- You know what?” snapped Windrose. “Let’s test something.” Pulling out a knife, she walked over to one of the larger stones and flipped it over. As she dragged the knifepoint across the stone, she said, “I’ll… carve… my name… on here…” She held it up so everyone could see. Her name was crudely scratched into the stone, rough but legible. She carefully put the stone at the base of a tree. “Then,” she continued, “when we get back here, we can check for my name. Okay?” “Checking for your name seems like a waste of time,” said Stalwart, “so I-” “The time you took to say those words is more time than it’ll take to check,” said Windrose. She jabbed a hoof at the tree. “I know where the stone is. I won’t miss it.” “It definitely won’t hurt,” mused Fallende. “Not like other pointless crap I’ve seen in my days. And if it’s right, we’re one step closer to whatever’s going on in here.” “Oh,” groaned Stalwart, “not you-” “Everyone!” yelled Daring. “Pack up your things. We’re leaving.” Everyone looked at her. She glared right back until they backed down. “Now. Windrose, keep an eye out in case we pass this way again.” “Would it kill you to be a little more open-minded?” Daring asked Stalwart as they slid down a gravel-covered slope. “How should I be a little more open-minded?” asked Stalwart, walking along just behind her. “Agree to everything you say? You obviously believed Windrose.” Her voice was biting. “We’re investigating weirdness. Windrose points out some weirdness. And you blow her off like- like that?” “Well, yeah, like that. Come on, do you really think that’s the weirdness we’re investigating? It’s got nothing to do with compasses, or weather, or-” “Neither does amnesia, and that still happened.” “You’re talking about warping space itself!” laughed Stalwart. “So seamlessly that no one’s aware of it! That’s not-” Daring spun and planted a hoof on Stalwart’s chest, bringing her to a stop. “Then you know what we’re looking for?” “What do you mean?” Stalwart asked, frowning. “Well, if you know that warping space has nothing to do with Needle Vale, then you know what we’re looking for.” The others caught up to them. Daring waved them on with mumbles of “We’ll catch up” without taking her eyes from Stalwart. “Well, do you?” Daring asked eventually. “Or are you just jumping to conclusions?” Stalwart bit her lip and looked away. “I’m… jumping to conclusions,” she muttered. Daring didn’t believe Stalwart had had a change of heart for a second. People didn’t drop their beliefs that quickly. But maybe she’d be thinking enough to stay quiet until the issue with the river was resolved, one way or another. “Good,” said Daring. “Now, don’t attack the others, okay?” She turned away without waiting for a response; a few long moments of flying took her to the front of the pack again. She wanted a better look at the land. Once Daring was paying attention, the amount of repetition she’d missed was unnerving. She remembered climbing over this root, ambling along this ridge, passing between these trees… She hadn’t even bothered justifying it before, just thoughtlessly ignored it. Why hadn’t any of this occurred to her? Was Fallende right about the mental magic of the river and it was somehow affecting at a distance? The open space between the trees felt oppressive; she found herself examining nothing and examining it very thoroughly, as if she could see where reality had been crudely stitched together. She didn’t see anything. She looked at the mountains. They hadn’t moved. Behind her, the others also seemed to have noticed the loop. They started out talking softly, but as they walked, they grew quieter and quieter. Before long, the only sound at all was the crunch of their feet across the snow. Where were the birds? Where was the wind? Daring almost asked, but felt like her words would just be swallowed up by the silence. They walked. Some parts, Daring definitely recognized. They were getting close, she thought. Any minute… Any minute… Any minute… Any- “Wait, stop,” said Windrose abruptly. Everyone stopped instantly. “This… This is it. This is where we stopped for lunch.” It was a nondescript stretch of stream, with just some water burbling over some rocks, yet Daring knew she was right. Windrose quickly ran off from the stream, towards- “Here!” It was the same sloping pile of rocks where they’d had lunch. The exact same. Nothing had changed. Daring swore she could see crumbs on the ground where they’d fallen. Windrose was sitting next to a tree, the tree, the tree where she’d put the stone. Her hooves were twitching over the stone, always drawing close only to pull away the last second. She looked up at the others, her face fearful. She didn’t say anything. “W-well, take a look,” said Stalwart, failing to sound cocky and confident. Windrose nodded. She took a deep breath. She pulled the stone away from the tree. She rolled it over, her mouth tight. She held it up so the others could see it. Her name was scratched into the bottom. The cold got a little deeper into Daring’s skin. “Let’s not follow the river anymore,” she said. “No,” whispered Stalwart. “Let’s not.”