Pocornia stepped out of a blurry glow, her hooves touching green grassland that stretched out as far as her eyes could see. She looked around, her old home came into view. She gulped, the sight of the home she left for the log cabin made her worry. Why would she be here unless it was for something bad, she tensed up, she thought whatever lie ahead had to be dangerous “I need to…” She whispered, sorrowing over what had happened.
Pocornia pressed on, reluctantly planting her hooves on the wooden stairway leading up to the home’s front door. She entered the home, sadly eyeing what remained. She teared up, eyeing the red sofa she and Sapphire used to sit at while they listened to game shows broadcasted over her antique radio. The kitchen doorway passed her gaze, she entered and remembered how much Sapphire loved her cooking. She had a way of perfuming the house with savory and sweet smells and Sapphire often pointed that detail out to her. Pocornia started to weep, her legs feeling heavier after each step up a flight of stairs. She went into their room, nearly whimpering at their unmade bed. Pocornia had forgotten all about it that night, she made it then sat down and raised her hooves to her face.
“It's all my fault…” Pocornia cried. “All of this is my fault.”
Pocornia shook, reacting to the bedroom door shutting. She looked, seeing Sapphire standing in front of the door. Sapphire smiled keenly at her, gently waving one end of her maroon dress around. Pocornia focused on Sapphire, watching her sashay towards her. Sapphire sat down next to Pocornia, edging closer to her while reaching for her hoof. “I know you’re upset.” Sapphire encouraged, adding a subtle nod with her comforting tone. “Let me help you.”
“I…” Pocornia mumbled, her shaky voice cracked. “I...can’t.”
Sapphire lifted her hoof from Pocornia’s and wrapped it around Pocornia’s shoulder, pulling her in close. “It's okay, I know you're scared.” Sapphire emphasized, cradling Pocornia’s head into her chest. Pocornia nuzzled into Sapphire, the heat from her breath warming Sapphires fur. Sapphire affectionately rubbed her hoof through Pocornia’s mane, brushing her long blonde hair. Pocornia looked up, gazing into Sapphire’s golden eyes. They shined like the finest of jewels, their brilliance soothing her worries. “It's alright, I’m here for you.” Sapphire reaffirmed.
“I don’t want you to go!” Pocornia threw her arms around Sapphire and pressed her face into Sapphire’s chest, crying. “I don’t want you to go!”
Sapphire hugged Pocornia tightly, comforting her with the rub of her hooves. “I know, it's okay. I’m here.”
Pocornia quivered in Sapphire’s arms, tightening her hold of her. “Please don’t hate me.”
“Pocornia…” Sapphire sweetly cooed. “Stop crying.”
Pocornia sniffled, breathing deeply against Sapphire’s lavender scented fur. She affectionately nozzled, letting out a heavy sigh as she recalled a pleasant memory “I remember that perfume, I got it for you.”
Sapphire gently lifted Pocornia’s chin so their eyes could meet. “It's my favorite, it reminds me of you...”
Pocornia blused, her cheeks turned a soft rosey red color. “I just want things to be okay, to be normal again.”
“Only you can make that happen, Pocornia.” Sapphire answered.
Pocornia gave Sapphire a gloomy look, feeling displeased with her efforts for redemption. “I don’t understand this anymore!” Pocornia dejected, sobbing lightly. “The Gauntlet was terrifying, but I knew I would get through it if I kept moving. And, the graveyard was scary, but I found the Mausoleum. This place tho...this constant change...and the hidden meanings.” Pocornia rested her head into Sapphire's shoulder. “Are you really here?”
“I’m here.” Sapphire sweetly cooed. “I’m really here.”
“You really are here.” Pocornia whimpered.
“Pocornia…” Sapphire spoke in a low, soft voice, her gentle tone conveying her affection. “It's time to wake up, it's time to come home.”
Pocornia gawked at Sapphire, feeling utterly dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“It's time to come home, we’re all waiting for you.” Sapphire replied.
“What?” Pocornia asked.
“This isn’t where you're supposed to be, you need to wake up.” Sapphire stated. She continued to speak louder, using a heavier tone. “Pocornia, you need to wake up. You’re in a hospital, you’re in a coma. We need you to wake up. Pocornia, please!”
Pocornia blinked, ears dropping flat against her head. “I don’t know what to do.” Pocornia threw her hooves onto Sapphire’s shoulders, a desperate plea for understanding made evident through her baffled expression. “What do I do?”
Sapphire grabbed hold of Pocornia’s arms and gave Pocornia a watery eyed look. “I don’t know what I would do without you. Pocornia, I think about you every day. Not an hour goes by where I don’t miss you. I need you to wake up!” Sapphire composure broke, her shoulders dropped as she let out a disheartened groan. “We’re all here for you. All of us, Songbird...Rara, Octavia... We miss you so much.”
Pocornia and Sapphire’s muzzles barely met, a couple about to kiss, but Pocornia halted Sapphire by pressing her hoof against Sapphire’s chest. If Pocorna had learned anything thus far on her perilous journey, she knows that her perception of what goes on around her and how she reacts to it really matters. If she makes the wrong decision, she is as good as dead, but she wondered if maybe by some slim chance that what Sapphire was telling her might be true. “What do you mean?” Pocornia asked.
“I can hear you.” Sapphire replied. “Pocornia, you're mumbling to me!”
“What happened to me?” Pocornia asked.
“Oh, I...we?” Sapphire’s voice cracked and quivered as she sobbed. “You pushed me.”
Pocornia squinted her eyes, skewing her brows as she gently pushed Sapphire’s hooves off of her shoulders. “I pushed you?”
“I started to cross the street, but I wasn’t paying attention. I thought you were behind me, but I had trotted into traffic. A stagecoach was about to run me over, you ran up to me and pushed me out of the way!” Sapphire shakenily expressed as she gently wiped her eyes.
Pocornia gave the matter some thought, it sounded like something she would do and the end result sounded possible. However...to think everything leading up to this moment in time was a chain reaction of a chivalrous act was a daunting thought to say the least. How could all of the eldritch horrors she has beheld be a mere construct of her mind meant to help her cope with an injury while being as complicated as it all had been thus far. Things were not adding up in her head, then again, nothing really had added up since she set out on her voyage to Ponyville...Ponyville, she quietly asked herself if that place was even real?
Was it even real, Pocornia pondered that question, silently questioning if the first friend she had made really was real. Fluttershy, the quaint yellow pegasus with a pretty pink mane. Now that Pocornia thought about it, that shy mare did not question her too much when most ponies should and would question a random pony they saw out on a bridge in the middle of the night. Pocornia wondered why Fluttershy chose not to doubt her, was she really that trusting of her?
What makes something true and something else false, Pocornia thought she would be able to answer that question by now yet she was not so sure anymore. “Fluttershy...Ponyville?”
“Pocornia, please come back to me...” Sapphire pleaded. “Please wake up…”
Pocornia hung her head and sighed, resting her hooves on her lap. Pocornia stared down at the floor. Her heart ached, a tightness in her chest giving her mind pause. She sat, her being completely in the present moment. She wanted to wake up, to return to old life, to end the nightmare once and for all. “What do I do?” Pocornia rubbed her face, stressing over her circumstances. “What do I do…”
“Pocornia, try making noise.” Sapphire rolled her hoof over, implying thought. “Try yelling, or maybe, screaming?”
Pocornia lifted her glossy gaze, her gloomy gaze fixing on Sapphire. “Scream?”
Sapphire shrugged her shoulders, enthusiastically replying. “It's worth a shot!”
Pocornia dropped her gaze, steadily eyeing the floor. “Scream.”
Sapphire leaned in, softly resting her hooves onto Pocornia’s hooves. “I know you can do this, I believe in you. Just let it out...”
Pocornia anxiously planted her hooves onto her knees and leaned over, taking shaky breathes. She could hear a subtle wheezing sound every time she took a breath, the muscles in her chest having constricted so tightly from the strain. She dry heaved once, sweat dripping down her brow. “Keep doing what you're doing, I can see your chest moving!” Sapphire encouraged. “Just wake up, please!”
Pocornia’s muscles went rigid, tension surging entirely through her. She covered her eyes and gritted her teeth, standing up off the bed towards Sapphire. Lowering her hooves, she glared at Sapphire with bladed eyes and flared teeth. Sapphire slightly leaned back, fearing Pocornia as she bellowed her words. “I don’t want anything to do with you!”
Pocornia growled at the terrified Sapphire. “I don’t want to be here with you and your monsters, I’m nothing like you!”
Sapphire gave Pocornia a cunning smirk and looked at her with satisfied eyes. The shade of Sapphire’s khaki fur brightened into a strong turquoise and the color in her yellow eyes turned orange, her deep blue mane changing to blonde while growing down the sides of her face. “Good job pony…” The Doppelganger pleasantly complimented. “I really didn’t think you would see through that one!”
Pocornia closed her eyes, sifting through her seething rage against her tormentor. “You...You...You!” Pocornia fitfully stuttered. She stood for a moment, opening her eyes and seeing two new portals in the room.
She stood for a moment, looking at the two portals. Heaving a sigh, she went left.
She found herself shrouded in darkness, again...
Relative darkness, anyway. Through a haze ahead she could see a soft glow, a dim sphere of light of a type she had seen before. In the graveyard.
Pocornia moved forward, the sound of her steps echoing into the stillness around her as she approached the sphere. What else was she going to do, she thought, but continue to follow the path she had set herself upon? However she moved slowly, acknowledging the inevitability but in no rush to entertain it. Darkness hid secrets, after all.
The haze began to dissipate as she drew near. Her eyes became fixated on the central point as she stepped forward, as something began to take shape within. A form, she thought, larger than her, one wrapped in shadow and dread. As if she wasn't used to that by now.
Pocornia halted for just a moment as she reached the edge of the light. She glanced down, the floor solid black beneath her. Her head rising she penetrated the perimeter of the sphere and saw...A chair? I mean seriously, she thought?
But no, not just a chair. More like a throne. But one weathered and torn, discolored and riddled with age. One neglected, one defeated, Pocornia thought.
Pocornia heard a whisper whirl through the air around her, sharp, like the cracking of a whip. The air moved, and suddenly the darkness came alive. For an instant she saw them, the dead, hundreds of them, shambling all about, pointing, screaming, accusing, eyes wild with anger and spite. A wailing sound assaulted her ears. She thought about turning to run. But then it all vanished. Except someone now sat upon that weathered old throne.
He was sloughed over, his head leaning to one side, his arms and legs hanging loosely about him. He was wearing armor, as that of a knight, but again worn and tattered. There was a pronounced and jagged gash centered squarely in his chest, blood still oozing from the gaping wound.
As Pocornia watched, his eyes fluttered and then moved, finding hers. For a moment he simply gazed at her. Then, lips as gray as the color of a headstone, he said: “I always knew you were coming.”
Realization and shock thundered through her. This could not be, simply could not be. This...thing...had tried to kill her, had tried to bury her in that forest. “But...You can't be here!” she blurted.
His hand twitched, as if in a dismissive wave. “And yet here I am,” he replied.
“Octavia...” Her mind raced for a moment. She knew what she was about to say had to be true. It simply had to. “Octavia killed you! She had to!”
The Toad nodded his head. “Yes, she did. Quite a battle, to be sure. Too bad you missed it.”
“But...” Pocornia stammered, “...then how...?”
The Toad stared at her for a moment, either in pity or in awe, she couldn't be sure.
“Did you not see them?” He asked. It seemed a slight smile crossed his face. “They let me out, in her honor. So that I could tell you something.”
“What?” Pocornia said. “You tried to kill me, what could you have to say I would possibly want to hear?”
The Toad shook its head slightly. “You ask the wrong questions, little one. Think. And hurry, we don't have much time.”
Pocornia stood as still as the darkness around her. And yet she felt something stirring within that darkness, an anticipation of some kind. Or perhaps a yearning, a sickly-sweet desire. She heard that whisper again, the cracking of the whip. Again for an instant she saw them, the assembled dead, all gazing upon her with their dead eyes.
She had to get this right.
She looked at the Toad. Octavia had obviously won that battle, the wound she saw left no doubt. The Toad was dead. And yet he sat here, staring at her along with all the others. What, as an issue, no longer mattered. Only...
“Why?” she asked. She heard a hiss issue from the darkness around her. A thousand of them. But she was pretty sure she had it. “Why did you always know I was coming?”
She felt a great disappointment seep into the darkness around her, sensing it sink to the ground as the tension of the moment evaporated. They were leaving. The Toad would not be far behind.
“I was sent to kill you, as you know,” the Toad said. “And I would have, but not for...Octavia...was it? But not really you, as it were, but whoever arrived along the path”
The Toad paused for a moment, his eyes glancing up toward what she could not know.
“You see, many, many years ago the path you walk was set, waiting for someone to walk it. It was inevitable someone would, and you were the one who did.” He waved his hand, as if to punctuate his pronouncement. “I waited for you, and you arrived. That is why.”
She took a step closer. “That can't be all,” she said. Pocornia thought quickly, attempting to connect the dots and draw the right conclusion. She knew better than to believe she was just a pawn in this game, she was the Knight, for pity's sake. And Octavia...
She looked at him, a thin smile on her face.
“You saw something, didn't you? Something you had never seen before? That is why you are here now, isn't it?” The Toad questioned.
The Toad smiled. “And what might that have been, Pocornia, She who treads upon the world?”
Pocornia smiled again, her eyes now alive with re-energized fire. If she wasn't going to make it. “A friend...was willing to lay down her life for me.” Pocornia said, smiling.
Pocornia shook her head, almost laughing.
“In your last moment, you found true meaning.” The Toad decreed.
The Toad smiled back at her, the last worthy expression his face would ever hold. “Yes,” he replied. “And now, Pocornia, I give it to you...” The toad gestured, watching Pocornia fade away like mist in the wind.
Pocornia appeared in the room, immediately seeing a pillar lower and two portals rise. Pocornia stepped through a portal and found herself back in Ponyville. Only, it wasn't Ponyville. Or at least, not the Ponyville she knew and remembered.
She turned to look behind her, sighting the bridge she had pulled her cart across on first arriving here. Only now it was worn, battered, its wood in tatters and appearing as if it would collapse if any dared to cross it. Weeds...grew everywhere beneath.
She heard a shuffling noise ahead, and turned to look.
It was Winona, the same dog she had seen on that same day she first crossed the bridge. Only...It was dirty, filthy even, sickly and thin to the bone. It stared at her, with weak eyes and a pleading nature. Save me, she thought. That was what it said, that was what it wanted from her.
“Puppy...” Pocornia murmured, “I don't...”
But then it was gone, in the wink of an eye, like it had never existed.
Pocornia moved forward, toward the center of town. All around her was desolation, buildings worn and tattered, windows broken, lawns unkempt, trash and refuse uncollected. Smoke drifted from a building in the distance. She saw no one about.
Making her way to the town square Pocornia finally saw a group of other ponies, gathered near what she knew to be a coffee shop. As she stepped onto the sidewalk across from them they looked at her, all of their heads turning, snapping, at once in her direction, their eyes locking with hers. She stopped, looking back at them, unable to turn her head away. Their gaze bored into her with an energy she had never felt before from ponykind, an energy spawned from a dark and hideous place, one absent of all the emotions which typically distinguished this realm.
They hated her. Pocornia could feel it. In light of what she was doing on behalf of what was morally right, she wanted to know why.
Pocornia stepped out into the square, toward the group across from her. Then, as if from the shadows themselves, someone moved into her line of sight from her right. She turned to see another pony, one as worn and tattered as the landscape around her.
It was Fluttershy.
Fluttershy moved closer, then paused about six feet away. She looked at Pocornia with eyes which were sad, desolate, cheerless. Pocornia felt as if she would cry, just from looking at the other pony. Then she heard a voice in the distance, one she thought she recognized. It was another pony, screaming, its voice carried on the wind like a wail.
“Why?!” it screamed. “Whyyyyyyyyy?!”
Pocornia looked at Fluttershy. The other just stood.
“What happened here?” Pocornia asked. “Fluttershy? What happened here?”
Fluttershy dropped her head, as if in defeat and despair. Then she raised it and looked at Pocornia.
“You happened here, Pocornia,” she said. “You...this is all you.”
Pocornia stepped toward her friend, disbelief and astonishment flooding through her. “Wha..?”
But then Fluttershy was gone, as were all the other ponies who had just been standing across the way. Pocornia looked around. With the exception of the forlorn sound of the wind blowing through the square, she was alone.
Pocornia looked at Sugarcube Corner. The door hung off of one hinge, but open. Perhaps she would find someone there. Crossing the square she once again heard that voice, the wail on the wind, screaming. “Whyyyyyyyy?!”
I know that voice, she thought to herself, but...I can't place it. Yet I know I have heard it before, someone I know...
Pocornia reached Sugarcube Corner and stepped inside. There, seated at a table in the center of the room, was the Cat. Its tendrils floated gently in the air around her, a stern look on her face. If such a thing were possible, Pocornia thought. As she approached Pocornia noticed two things. The cat was staring at her, eyes deep as black pools of stagnant water. And the key was lying on the table in front of her.
Pocornia stepped up to the table. Again she heard that voice, that voice she somehow knew, screaming into the wind. The Cat looked at her, waiting.
Pocornia gestured at the key.
“Is that for me?” she asked.
“I would like to give it to you,” the Cat replied, “so that we may bring this sordid affair to a close.” The cat leaned forward, all of his tendrils arcing and turning to focus on Pocornia. “However first you must answer a question.”
Pocornia huffed. “The Toad gave me the same choice,” she said.
“The Toad is not here, little one, I am,” the Cat replied, a hint of menace behind his words. “And I am very much alive, I assure you.”
The tendrils were poised, like coiled snakes, still focused on her.
“I meant no disrespect,” Pocornia said. “What is your question?”
She saw a twinkle in the Cat's eyes. Then again she heard that voice, screaming into the wind.
“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”
The Cat leaned back into his chair. “Answer her,” was all he said.
Pocornia stood still, both mute and dumbfounded. Answer who, she thought? But then the thought again crossed her mind, she should know who. She knew that voice.
Pocornia looked at the Cat, who simply returned his gaze.
“If I answer the question, I get the key?”
The Cat remained motionless.
Looking to the ground, Pocornia continued her train of thought. “If I get the key, then I can open the gate, claim the Orb, and all of this will be over. Everything will go back to normal...”
Pocornia looked at the Cat, which now was akin to looking at stone. She heard the voice on the wind again, still pleading.
“Answer her,” was all the Cat said.
So this was it, Pocornia thought, the final test. She had to figure this out. On this occasion there may not have been a room full of the dead waiting to rip her to pieces if she failed, but the stakes were just as high. But the issue was clear, how could she answer a question she didn't understand the nature of? Yet in attempting to decipher that riddle another thought kept protruding. I know that voice, she told herself, I have heard it before. But where?
Pocornia’s eyes were flicking back and forth as she struggled to place it. It had been...in darkness, illuminated only by a weak, sickly light.
In the graveyard.
“Octavia!” she blurted out. “That is Octavia!” She whirled about, expecting to see her friend behind her. But no one was there. Then she heard the scream again.
“Whhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!”
She whirled about again to look at the Cat.
“Why is Octavia screaming?”
The Cat looked at one of his tendrils, stroking it gently. “Is that the question you believe you should answer?”
Pocornia looked at the floor before her, her eyes seeing nothing. Everything. “No...wait, give me a minute.”
Pocornia tried to sort through it all. Her journey had been hard, the challenges many. But during her travels the Werewolf had given her courage, Octavia had given her strength, the Toad had given her purpose. If she got the key and opened the gate and took the Orb, all of this would be over. And all of it would have been worthwhile.
But what did it all mean? And of all the ponies she had met why would Octavia be the one in so much pain? Why is she screaming?
Pocornia felt the rate of her breathing intensify. Again, there was no dead shuffling about the room but she was running out of time. She could feel it to her soul.
Why is Octavia screaming, she thought. Octavia was strong, possessed of an inner strength the like of which Pocornia had never witnessed before, she had risked her life to help Pocornia, she had defeated the Toad. Why would she be brought to the level of the suffering and remorse Pocornia heard entwined within her wails? To such relentless screaming? But no, it couldn't be that simple, there had to be something more. Something she had yet to see.
Pocornia looked around the room, what was once a shop filled with happy ponies going about their lives now a tangle of broken and lifeless refuse. But...it wasn't real. What she was seeing wasn't real. Fluttershy had not been real, the other ponies had not been real, Winona...it had all been what ifs. “This was all you,” Fluttershy had said.
Pocornia looked at the Cat. The question wasn't why was Octavia screaming, the question was why would Octavia be screaming.
And there was only one possible answer...
“There is something terribly wrong here,” Pocornia said to the Cat. “Something I have missed.”
In response the Cat smiled, and gently pushed the key forward across the table. Upon grabbing the key, Pocornia succumbed to a blinding white flash.
Pocornia’s hooves clopped along the main hall she had entered from, the faces greeting her with varied looks that ranged from mild shock to astonished bewilderment. They spoke amongst each other as she walked by, their frantic voices carrying to the other faces farther down the hall. “Mortal, mortal! Please leave it here, we will be extinguished!” One face beseeched. “No, remove it from the mantle!” another face implored while Pocornia was unlocking the gate. She stepped past it, leaving it slightly ajar as she ascended the stairway. “I need it…”
Pocornia moved towards the orb, looking at it apprehensively. It sat atop a circular stone table with indescribable markings indented in the body like it were meant to be the focus point of an archaic ritual or some sacred practice. She reached out to it, reaching for the orb only to pull her hand back as the snarling and snapping jaws of the snake within hissed at her gleefully. She gulped, summoning whatever might her gut could give her and touched the orb. A small shock pulsed down the tip of Pocornia’s hoof, she got a feeling that the orb was not meant to be touched by her, by something that did not belong in this world. “What is this?”
Pocornia picked the orb up, peering deeply into it as the snakes within did an insane looking dance. They emitted delirious sounding shrieks while they curled and swirled around each other repeatedly. The orb began to pulse in her hoofs, she felt the muscles in her biceps and forearms constrict so tightly that she could not move. She screeched in pain as green electricity sparked off of her body, her face contorting into a shriveled expression as she fell backwards down the stairs. She hit the base of the stairway with a thud, a painful shout blaring from her as the green light reached out of her body like fingers that started to carve strange symbols into her flesh. Smoke steamed off of Pocornia while the fingers carved some sort of sigil onto her forehead, chest and hooves. The color of her fiery orange eyes morphed into a pulsing and powerful bright green glow.
Pocornia felt her body relax, feeling so leached of life that she laid on the floor like a corpse in a grave. She mumbled incoherently, unable to process anything around her. The faces on the wall screamed and yelled as the Mausoleum interior cracked and splintered. Pocornia forced herself onto her hooves and shambled towards the exit, her eyes panning towards one of the screaming faces riven with deep cracks. He incoherently yelped and wailed as his jaw snapped and his eyes swelled to the point of popping out of his skull, strange liquid seeping from his eye sockets. Pocornia started to run, ignoring the hurt her body had sustained as she raced up the stairway.
Cries of agony, fear and death could be heard by all that stirred amongst the graveyard’s many headstones. The Werewolf approached the Mausoleum, moving alongside it to hide. He peeked over the exterior’s corner, the entrance visible to him from the corner of his sharpened gaze. He squinted, thinking that Pocornia should emerge any second now. He thought, listening to a repetitive knocking sound that grew louder and louder. He waited, biding his time. As Pocornia darted out from the entrance, she felt herself being yanked backward by something furry that had hooked onto her shoulder. Pocornia squealed, miraculously spitting a bolt of electricity from her mouth that The Werewolf quickly dodged. He roared, throwing Pocornia onto her back.
“You scared me!” Pocornia talked back.
The Werewolf fitfully tugged at his own ears. “We don’t...” He stammered, anxiously shuffling in place as his eyes widened. He saw the orb floating in the air, around Pocornia, like she had her own gravitational pull. He could not believe it, he could not believe that any pony could have actually survived the Mausoleum and leave with a reward. “So you made it this far...” He blundered. “You found it…”
Pocornia stood up and brushed herself off. “Yup, I can shoot lightning too, like I just did!”
“No, no, no...this wasn’t how this was meant to play out.” The Werewolf rambled.
Pocornia stood tall and firm, standing up to The Werewolf. “I don’t know what you mean by that and I don’t care. I have what I came for, it’s time for us to go see The Dark Pony!”
Pocornia paused, having now noticed the tense and concerned expression on The Werewolf’s face. The monstrous titan she knew The Werewolf to be looked much more timid and pup-like, ears, eyes and his posture all casted downward. She felt shocked, her jaw hung open as the pupils in her surprised eyes shrunk. “But…I got the orb.”
The Werewolf reasserted himself, standing upright and proud like he often had. “Alright...here is what we do now.”
“Wait!” Pocornia interjected. “What do you mean?”
“Pocornia, I…” The Werewolf stopped, cut off by Pocornia’s shrill tone. “I did it, I won!”
“No, you don’t understand.” The Werewolf countered, continuing with “There is…”
“But I got the orb, there can’t be any more to this. We just have to go give it to The Dark Pony!” Pocornia argued, shifting into a fighting stance, her eyes sizzling with green energy. “Do I have to fight you too now because I won’t let you stop me from saving Sapphire!”
“Sapphire is fine!” The Werewolf blurted out. “You never killed her, it never happened. It was a dream meant to trick you so that you would do this at your own will.”
Pocornia stared at The Werewolf down, quietly waiting for a sign of whatever he might do next. “He needs the orb.” She stated clearly. “And I am going to give it to him, you can’t stop me. I can fight back, I have lightning!”
The Werewolf shook his head. “You do that and he will destroy everything...”
Pocornia held her position. “You need to explain this right now!”
The Werewolf put his paw out, gently nodding his head at Pocornia.
Pocornia squinted her eyes, tilting her head a little. “He can fix it, he can make it so I never would have hurt her!”
The Werewolf waved his paw dismissively. “Your best interests are not his concern, he is only interested in furthering himself. You cannot trust him!”
Pocornia blinked.
“Princess Luna is your true guardian, she and her sister are protecting your friends with many guards.” The Werewolf answered. “Sapphire is alive and well at Canterlot Castle.
Pocornia looked down at the ground, feeling out her instincts for a moment. Something was definitely amiss, she sensed a thick tension in the air. “you...All this time?”
“Yes.” The Werewolf reaffirmed, conveying his irritation to her through a guttural growl “We must go, now...”
“You need to explain this better!” Pocornia stubbornly demanded.
“You have to trust me. Luna sent me here. We are your true allies in this, not The Dark Pony. We are not safe here, we cannot wait. The details do not matter right now, I promise you that Luna will answer all of your questions.” The Werewolf waved at Pocornia to follow. “What you need to do right now is come with me so that I can lead you to Canterlot Castle.”
Pocornia growled then waved at the gate. “Lets go…”
Pocornia raced to the gate with The Werewolf in tow, they looked around as they entered the main part of the graveyard.
“Where are all the Zombies?” Pocornia anxiously asked.
“I didn’t see anything when I arrived here.” The Werewolf answered.
“You didn’t get them?” Pocornia questioned.
“No.” The Werewolf answered, his eyes crossing an empty plate where a statue presumably once stood. “What happened there?”
“Oh no...they must have moved.” Pocornia replied. “Wait, look!”
The Werewolf stopped, standing over a collection of broken stoney bits. “What?”
Pocornia examined the stone pile, sorting through all the broken bits. “I saw statues when I first came here and they were alive, sort of…”
The Werewolf pressed a paw against Pocornia’s back, encouraging her to move. “All the more reason to keep moving...”
Pocornia moved on, The Werewolf in tow. They neared a curve in the path, their observing eyes noticing a dismembered stone arm lying further down the path.
“Somethings wrong!” Pocornia declared, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
The Werewolf muttered a vulgar curse, following Pocornia along the curving path. They came to the main graveyard’s entrance, the metal gates left wide open. The Werewolf clenched his furry paws, his sharp claws digging into his palms.
It was finally time to see who the better predator was...