//------------------------------//
// Fling 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

He'd been there for about half an hour already. A different pony might have considered that a waste of time when he was supposed to be moving towards his destination. A different pony wouldn't have seen what he was seeing right there. It was what his trail had led him to, and though it also continued past it he knew that was merely a secondary option.
It had been a while since he'd run into a puzzle so complex, or into one that existed on its own without his input. Maybe the latter was just a result of a still imperfect understanding of his own talents, and maybe the former a consequence of having grown rusty, but either way he was rather enjoying the challenge he found himself in.
The trail split up into a square shape surrounding a clearing in the forest. Four tall trees were near the corners, but not quite on them. They were instead on the square's edges, two on the side near him and two on the opposite one. No trees were inside the square, but instead there were two large rocks jutting out of the ground. One, taller than him, was in front of the left tree, about as far from it as it was from the corner, pointed left. The other was smaller, and symmetrically placed relatively to the first stone and the centre of the square. It pointed straight upwards.
He hadn't allowed himself to enter the square. He was fairly certain that would ruin the whole thing, and he'd need to take the long way around. He could see wires go up inside the trees, but past the base they disappeared from his sight. He'd found four small piles of rocks, one on each side of the square, and he was sure they were part of the whole thing, but he still hadn't managed to get them to work.
Humming, he began to walk around the square again, to check if he'd missed something. Surely he had, there weren't enough elements yet for him to figure out what he was supposed to do and no good puzzle would ask that he make blind guesses with a chance to horribly fail. That kind of thing was apparently reserved for life, the architect of which he would have much to discuss with if they ever happened to meet. If there even was one, the lack thereof would have actually explained away or at least justified many of his gripes with existence.
He paused. There was a branch on the ground, of the same kind as the ones on the trees. There were no wires on or in it, but he clearly could see he couldn't see all the wires there were. And maybe his problem had been growing too reliant on his vision and too little on his reasoning. He approached the branch and began to move it towards the pile of rocks closest to it.
He set the branch down, and nudged its tip towards the rocks. There was a clicking sound. The stallion smiled.