Friendship is Magic Part 2
Forest of Everfree
Twilight wasn’t sure how long they had been in the forest. She doubted that the moon had moved since Nightmare Moon had returned, so she couldn’t use that to gauge the time. She figured it mustn’t have been more than twenty minutes, but with dirty hooves, leaves caught in her mane, and listening to Rainbow Dash’s story of how she allegedly saved a basket of puppies from going over a waterfall, it felt like over an hour.
“…then I loop-d-looped around and WHAM!” Rainbow illustrated with a small aerial backflip, “Rainbow Dash saved the day again.”
“Oh dear, I hope you didn’t frighten those poor little puppies by flying too fast.” Fluttershy said.
“Twilight, dear,” Rarity called out from the rear of the group, “Are you alright? You seem a little distracted.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m just worried, about Princess Celestia, and about how the rest of Equestria is doing. I mean, you all know what’s going on because Nightmare Moon appeared right before you and told you. But what about Canterlot and the other cities? All they know is that the sun hasn’t risen. They might not even know that Princess Celestia is missing!”
Rarity climbed her way through a patch of low hanging vines to bring herself next to Twilight. “Don’t worry yourself so much, darling. I have full faith in the ponies of a refined city like Canterlot to deal with this problem as calmly and efficiently as we are.”
= = =
Meanwhile in Canterlot...
“Come on, come on!” A silver furred Unicorn said as he and his friends tried to lower the moon with their magic. “If they could do it a thousand years ago so can we!” The others poured more magic into their spell as other students of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns ran across the campus.
Two of them were a pair of sisters, one with a red mane, the other purple. They carried several scrolls and textbooks in their magic. These were brought to the courtyard where the sounds of panicked screaming could still be heard from the city proper. More students were gathered, each carrying something magically related.
“This is everything we could find on light and heating magic!” the red-maned mare said.
“Thank you, Cherry Bomb, Grape Shot.” One of the stallions said. “Now, if we enchant these fire gems with Lumious’s Rain-Splitter and a Morning Glory charm, we should have a working prototype for a new sun. Come on ponies, let’s get to work!”
= = =
“I hope you’re right.”
“You’re welcome, Twilight. Now, which way to this castle we’re looking for?”
Twilight stopped in her tracks. She quickly opened her saddle bags and only found the three books and the Duel Monsters deck. “No. No, No, NO!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have a map! We’ve been walking blindly for the last half hour.” Every pony began looking around them, as the forest suddenly seemed to be a lot denser and creepier than it had been. Twilight continued to berate herself. “Ugh! How foolish could I have been. Was I just expecting there to be a convenient path that would take us straight to the Elements? Of course there wouldn’t be!”
“Twilight! Calm down! I think I remember seeing something that looked like a map in that book I read. And it I’m wrong I’m sure Miss Dash here would be more than willing to fly up over the trees and see if she could see the castle.”
Twilight managed to slow her breathing, “Thank you, Rarity.” She pulled the red covered book out of her saddlebags and began flipping through the pages. Sure enough, between photos of old ruins and drawings of long forgotten artifacts were detailed maps of the areas in question. “Yes! A topographical map of The Castle of the Two Sisters and the surrounding area.”
“Top hat what?” Rainbow asked.
“Topographical,” Applejack answered, “It means it shows us the elevation of the land, where to look out for steep hills, ravines and rivers.”
Twilight lit up her horn with magic so she could see it better, “Okay, here’s where the Castle is supposed to be. Applejack, you’re more familiar with the local terrain than I am. Can you take a look?”
“Sure. Okay, this flat area is definitely Ponyville. So that must be the river we crossed when we first entered. And that’s that gully we passed. So that means we must be here, and to get to those Elements we just have to keep going southwest.”
“And since the moon was already starting to set in the west when Nightmare Moon escaped, and it hasn’t moved since then, we can use that as a guild.” She put the book away. “Come on, everypony, let’s keep moving!” She said, pushing aside a tree branch, only to find a large leonine figure in the way.
Its fur was golden brown while its thick mane was a dull red. It suddenly rose onto its hind limbs spreading a pair of leathery bat wings, revealing this to be no ordinary lion.
“A manticore!” Twilight screamed, as the beast let out a throaty roar. “We’ve got to get past it.” Fluttershy became distressed on hearing Twilight’s declaration.
The manticore suddenly lunged for the nearest pony, who happened to be Rarity. Her instincts told her to duck, causing a powerful swipe from the monster’s right paw to just barely miss her. Still running on instincts, she kicked out with her back legs, striking the beast in the muzzle. At this point her brain caught up to what her body was doing, and she started running. The large predator pursuing closely behind her.
“Wait!” Fluttershy whispered as the two passed her.
Applejack quickly jumped on top of the creature’s shoulders, stopping it in its pursuit and instead focusing its attention on the pony pulling at its mane.
“Yeeha! Git along little doggy!” Applejack called in sheer glee.
“Wait!” Fluttershy once again said.
The manticore began hopping around the forest like a bullfrog, bashing into trees to try and shake Applejack off. Eventually this worked and the farm pony went sailing. “All yours, partner.” She said as she passed Rainbow Dash.
“I’m on it!” she said, eagerly as she dived down into fray.
“Wait!” This time Fluttershy spoke at a volume that in normal circumstances, would have been heard by a pony. But with Rainbow Dash flapping past her, everypony’s attention on the manticore, and the manticore’s growling, her call once again went unheard.
Everypony looked on, still in the same spot they started in as none of them had been able to distract the monster for more than a few seconds. Now, Rainbow Dash was flying circles around it, leaving a rainbow contrail behind her. This kept the creature contained in a blender of colors.
Unfortunately, Rainbow hadn’t seen the creature’s tail, which was red, armored and held a venomous stinger at the end. As the monster tried to escape its multichromatic prison, it lashed out its tail, whacking the Pegasus back towards the group.
“Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed in concern. She landed roughly on her stomach. The manticore hadn’t stung her, thankfully, but now this was getting ridiculous. The manticore lowered its head, growling. Twilight and Applejack both kicked dirt with their front hooves, before they, Rainbow and Rarity all began charging at the monster, with Pinkie Pie bouncing along behind them. They were about halfway there when-
“WAAAAAAIT!”
Fluttershy ran out in front of the herd and placed herself between them and the predator. The ponies were all shocked, some because they had forgotten she was even there, and others because they had never heard the Pegasus that loud before.
She turned to the manticore, a smile on her face as she slowly trotted up to it. It growled and raised its paw again to strike her. Everypony covered their eyes, unable to see such a soft mare get hit.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Fluttershy said, caringly, not to her friends, but the vicious monster they were fighting. She began sniffing at its left paw, which he then held out to her, revealing a large thorn embedded in the paw pad. “Oh you poor, poor little baby.” She said.
The other ponies were dumbstruck. “Little?” Rainbow asked.
“Now this might hurt for just a second.” She wrapped her teeth around the thorn before pulling it out. The Manticore let out a roar as it lifted her up in both its paws.
“Fluttershy!” Their concerns proved to be unfounded as the creature began purring and licking the Pegasus’s mane.
“Oh-hoho! You’re just big old kitty cat, aren’t you? Yes you are. Yes you are.”
With the ‘monster’ pacified, the ponies began to trot passed it and in the direction of the castle. Twilight waited for Fluttershy to leave the manticore alone so she could ask a question. “How did you know about the thorn?”
“I didn’t.” She answered, her mane thoroughly matted from the licking. “But sometimes we all just need to be shown a little kindness.”
Twilight thought on that for a moment, before realizing, she was right. The manticore might only have been attacking them because it was hurt. She knew her brother, Shining Armor, could get very short tempered if he had lost a sparring match in training. Maybe what applied to ponies could apply to everyone, even monsters and animals.
= = =
As the ponies marched on, the forest grew darker and darker. More than once, they found themselves tripping over a root or stumbling into a bush. Even Rainbow Dash found she had to land just to keep her wings from getting tangled in vines and branches.
“Ugh! This stinks!” She whined, “We could be walking right past that old castle and never even know it! I hate the night!”
“Then quit yer yappin’ and move along.” Applejack chastised, “The sooner we find that castle, the sooner we find them Elements, rescue the Princess, and defeat that no good- er, monster? Witch? What exactly is Nightmare Moon supposed to be any way?”
“A princess, apparently.” Twilight answered.
“Woah woah woah, What!?” Rainbow was shocked, “She can’t be a princess. There’s only one princess.”
“I know that. But apparently, there used to be two.”
“Oh! Oh! Can I tell the story? Pretty please?” Pinkie was bouncing around like an eager school filly, her hooves already grabbing the book on Mythology from Twilight’s bag.
“Um, sure. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.” Pinkie opened the book and began reading aloud as the mares continued walking.
“’Many years ago, in the magical land of Equestria,’”
“History? Ugh lame!” Rainbow jeered, rolling her eyes.
“Shh!” Rarity and Fluttershy both shushed her.
“’There were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land…’” as Pinkie read The Tale of The Two Sisters, the other girls who hadn’t been aware of the full picture, suddenly felt, less sure of themselves.
“So, Nightmare Moon used to be this younger princess. And she felt unappreciated for her work and became evil to get back at her sister and those ponies who scorned her.” Rarity summarized. “I hate to admit it, but I believe I can see where she’s coming from.”
“Are you serious?” Rainbow asked.
“Absolutely.” Rarity agreed. “How would you feel if you poured your heart and soul into making something, or doing something, and somepony else got praised and had their efforts called ‘Glorious,’ ‘Beautiful,’ and ‘Awesome!’ while your own efforts earned an ‘eh’?”
Rainbow looked down at that, “I guess I’d feel really bad.”
“I’d wonder, ‘What did I do wrong?’” Twilight added.
“Exactly. She must have felt terrible. For a princess not to be loved by her ponies, I’m not surprised she, broke.”
“It might have been more than just them not appreciating her night.” Twilight added, “They might have been afraid of her. There’s a reason that period of pony history is called The Dark Ages. Ponies were scared of everything, especially the things associated with the night.”
“Things like dark forests that no pony comes out of?” Fluttershy asked, having noticed that it was now almost too dark to see.
Off in the distance, a faint howl was heard. “Or of wild animals hunting lone fillies?” Applejack asked, getting closer to the other fillies.
Twilight watched a pair of glowing yellow eyes track their movements from the treetops. “And of m-monsters attacking towns in the dark.”
Rarity caught a glimpse of something moving through the underbrush. “And ruffians and bandits, stealing and pillaging from travelers.”
Rainbow was shaking in her feathers. “And of ghosts and ghouls and other spooks and stuff?” She stopped shaking and strutted forwards without a care. “Well it’s a good thing we don’t have to worry about that stuff, huh?” She walked about four hands before bumping into a tree. A tree that was glowing with a round mouth filled with dagger sharp teeth.
“Gahh!” Rainbow scurried back, drawing the other ponies’ attention to the wicked tree. And to the one behind it. And the two next to it. And the ones behind them. Suddenly, the whole forest seemed to be snarling at them with barred teeth.
“AAHHH!”