Four foals, a timber pony, and a griffin stood at the base of a hill. They looked and felt exhausted. While thankfully cleaner than they were when passing into the Undiscovered West, they were still travel-weary and ready for sleep in real beds, or even piles of straw and hay.
Cress puffed and took to the air, not excusing herself anymore as she went scouting ahead.
Gil, while being able to fly, had begun to find it boring and tedious when, for the past two days, they'd only seen forest as far as his hawk-like eyes could see. Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara had given up grooming, and their manes and tails hung low with grass, twigs and leaves, plus their lack of motivation.
Snickers was the best of them all, though. He kept his head high through the trek so far, and stayed walking tall like a stallion to those that followed him into the unknown.
"Snickers, honey, can we stop, please?" Silver asked. "I'm, like, tired again."
Diamond gave her herd sister a flick with her tail. "You're an earth pony, Silver, deal with it."
"I never had to do this much work before. If it wasn't for these special pearls," Silver tapped the pearls around her neck, "I'd be sweating like crazy."
Diamond snorted. "I noticed you don't sweat, and now I know why. Why not let me borrow them for a while, I could use a refresher."
Silver stepped away. "No, way. Not unless I can wear your tiara."
Diamond stopped and raised a hoof to her namesake. "No deal, then."
"Fine, then." Silver stated.
"Fine, then, back to you." Diamond snapped.
"Fine, then, back to you, times five!" Silver snarked.
Snickers turned back and moved between the fillies before they could come to shoving tactics, again. "Ladies, let's just take a step back from this and remember that we're all doing fine, right? Silver, you're as pretty as ever and Diamond, you're as radiant as the morning sunrise."
Both fillies lightly blushed and looked at Snickers, who glanced between them. "Alright, sweetie," Diamond said, "just for you."
Snickers nodded and moved ahead of them, again. Silver and Diamond moved close to one another then to share some filly talk. "Silver?"
"Yeah, Diamond?"
"Remember last night? What we almost did with Snickers?" Diamond asked.
Silver glanced at Diamond like she'd grown a third ear. "How could I forget?"
"I really have the tingles… but I can't use my hooves," Diamond said, glancing at both their forelegs, covered past the canon with dirt and muck.
"Yeah, so?" Silver asked with suspicion.
"Well, if I get us time away and alone, can you help me out?" Diamond asked, flicking her mane with a twist of her head.
Silver's jaw slacked open, then snapped closed. "Ew, no, I'm not… licking you back there." Diamond quietly whined but Silver wasn't having it. "No, Diamond. I'm not doing it, and you can't make me."
Diamond leaned closer and smirked. "I'll let you climb on Snickers the next time we do something and, who knows, maybe something will tickle you in your special place, and maybe I won’t stop it from happening."
Silver glanced at Snickers's tail and watched him walking with confidence in each step. She shook her head. "No!" She harshly whispered.
Diamond rolled her eyes and groaned. "How about we just rub rumps? We both win that way."
Silver snorted and walked ahead. "I'm done with this conversation, Diamond."
Diamond Tiara watched Silver Spoon walk ahead and noticed the grey filly's tail was low, covering her genitals from view. Diamond's urge to release was growing and she wasn't sure of what to do. Typically she'd be able to take care of it within an hour, if she were clean and at home, but she was neither.
"I need a day off from this," Diamond grumbled to herself while slinking to the rear of the group. Walking from behind she couldn’t help watching tails and hips sway with each step their owners took, and she became distracted. Diamond looked up to the treetops, trying to see the sky though the harp strings, when she stumbled off the path.
A low growl came from behind her and she stumbled, turning around. The path was clear of any predators, but she knew what she heard. She turned back to catch up, only to find the others were gone.
Panicking, Diamond ran down the path they’d all been walking on, yet after a couple minutes she didn’t see anypony. She stopped, breathing heavily more from fear than exhaustion. “Snickers? Silver Spoon?” She called out. Only birdsong and insect chirping replied. Then they too fell silent.
“Why are you alone, little filly?” An old mare’s voice asked from behind Diamond. She spun around and came almost snout to snout with a decrepit old mare wearing a disheveled shaul, sunhat, and saddle. The saddle not only didn’t match, but it also didn’t seem to have a purpose being worn in their current setting. Diamond took a step back from the smelly mare’s breath. “Come with me... and Mother will have a nice broth.”
Diamond shook her head and backed up another pace. “No, I don’t know you. Where are my friends?”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about them. You’re the first I’ve seen in so long, so you have to come and stay for supper. I insist,” the old mare said, showing gnarled, missing, and rotten teeth.
Not all of them were flat, either.
Diamond stepped back again, shaking her head. “No, way. I don’t know you! You’re a stranger, and I won’t go with you!”
The mare snarled in a very unpony way, baring what few teeth she had left, then Diamond shrieked at the top of her lungs. She inhaled again and repeated the shrill sound.
That was when Cress appeared and landed between Diamond and the mare. The filly held a stick in her forelegs as she reared up and flared her wings. “Back off, or I’ll help you decide which knee you don’t need anymore.”
The mare hissed, but slunk back off the trail and into the brush.
“Cress, thank Celestia you showed up in time!” Diamond stated. “What was that thing?” She asked, looking to where the mare had hidden.
“Bad news. C’mon, you’re only a couple paces off the trail and about a mile back. If you didn’t scream, I don’t think I’d have found you, so stay close.”
Diamond nodded and followed Cress from the trail she was on to the trail they were all taking before. The sun was brighter and the sounds of nature --- birds, insects, and wind though the leaves --- made her smile.
Snickers grabbed Diamond in a hug and squeezed her so tight she groaned. “Don’t scare me like that again! I thought you’d been snatched by some monster.”
Cress pointed to where the creature had hidden, off the path. Kiwe pulled a vial from under his girth strap and threw it to where she had pointed. There was a loud explosion and a purple mist billowed from the area.
A shrill screech startled the group, followed by the scampering of what sounded like a dozen feet through the brush, hidden in unnatural shadows. A moment later the group noticed birds start chirping again.
“We should go…” Diamond said, returning to her hooves and shoving Snickers with her body.
They moved in a close group, with Gil flying low overhead, as they made as much distance from that part of the forest as they could.
…
A campsite sat off the road and the foals looked at it, longingly. There was a creek with fresh cold water, long grass for some nibbling, and a perfectly prepared fire-pit, with wood ready to be lit. It was too good to be true, so they camped on the road in sleeping bags with bugs biting them throughout the night.
The only saving grace was Kiwe and his alchemy. He was able to, after midnight, finish brewing a small potion that would keep the bugs off of them, as long as they let him rub some of the potion on their foreheads.
Silver was the first in line, and regretted it immediately. She gagged and coughed as the scent reached her, even before it was applied. “Ugh, like, what is that? It smells like the sewer had a baby with a dead raccoon.”
Kiwe sniffed it and grimaced. “It is effective.”
“That’s not an answer, bro,” Snickers said, sneering when the stench made its way to him.
“The brew is smelly, that is for sure, but a bug bite you will not have to endure.” Kiwe rhymed.
“We get that part,” Diamond said, covering her snout. “How long will it last, and how long would we stink?”
Kiwe dabbed some on his head and waved at it with his forehoof. “Perhaps an hour, maybe less. It is worth the smell to have good rest, yes?”
Snickers moved to the front and leaned down. “I got a mosquito bite on my balls and a dozen more on my body, it’s worth it.”
There were some giggles and a trill of a laugh from Gil, then Snickers coughed and crossed his eyes, trying to see the mark on his forehead. “So,” Snickers asked. “Now what?”
Kiwe nodded once. “Just walk forward a short way and let the smell keep the bugs at bay.”
Snickers did just that and left the group’s immediate area to walk around them all. There were plenty of gagging sounds and coughs, and it sounded like Silver was about to really vomit, when everything went silent for Snickers. He stopped in place and looked around, only seeing darkness.
“Well, shit, I fucked up, didn’t I?” Snickers said to himself. As he looked around the shadowed area he was in. It reminded him of being on the train with Harmony, and part of him hoped the God-like pony would appear to taunt him. Instead, something else appeared.
“I’d say so, kid.” A male voice said from high above him. Snickers turned to face the source and met long legs. He looked up the long body to see a human, a tall boy, much like he once was. “You’re not what you used to be, are you?”
The man adjusted the collar of the one piece suit he wore and grinned down maliciously.
Snickers stumbled back, tripping over his hind legs and almost falling to his rump before he got his hooves under himself and backed away more carefully. “Fuck you! What the fuck are you doing here? You can’t be here! Go back to hell, where I sent you!” Snickers snapped. “I left you behind, all of you behind!”
The man laughed, mockingly. He stepped a single step and towered over Snickers again. “You have a lot to answer for, and a lot of work to catch up on. And before you say anything you’ll regret, you won’t get rid of me so easily, this time. I think I’ll have some fun before doing the same to you. Maybe I’ll start with those girls you’re traveling with. I can kill them slowly, or cut them up. One leg at a time, either way,” the man said, licking his lips. I’ll see you soon…”
The world came back in a blur with Silver and Diamond holding Snickers as tears wept from his eyes. “What?” Snickers asked, blinking in the light of a small fire somepony had made.
“The darkness, it tried to take you when you went too far from us… don’t do that again, Snickers, please,” Silver pleaded and hugged him tighter.
Kiwe tossed another bundle of wood onto the fire and let the flames build. “Tonight we have a fire to keep the shadows at bay, I will not sleep without the light, what do you all say?”
Snickers and his herd, Cress, and even Gil agreed. Laxxie appeared as a full sized timberwolf from the shadows with yellow ichor dripping from her body.
Laxxie spat something spongy onto the ground at the border between firelight and darkness. “I got the one trying to hunt Alpha, it will not hunt Alpha again.”
Everypony looked at the thing and flinched back when it pulsed once. “Okay, I’m not sleeping tonight,” Diamond said, moving to stand with herself between the blob and Snickers.
“Then you have first watch,” Gil stated as he moved by the fire and lay with the egg on a blanket pile.
Diamond glared at the gryphon, but held her tongue. She moved Snickers and Silver to the bedrolls laid out around the fire. “Get some sleep, my loves,” she said, giving Snickers a kiss, then Silver, too. “I’ll keep you safe.” She tapped her tiara and the other two nodded and bedded down in one sleeping bag.
Cress flew up and made several high pitched chirps, then landed on her sleeping bag. “I’m not letting you guard alone. If you go missing, again, we might not find you. I’ll stay guard and we should work in shifts of two each.”
Snickers pulled the cover over his and Silver’s head and there was shuffling before the bag stilled. Laxxie reverted to a timber pony and left many of the ichor covered sticks behind their path. She stayed at the edge of the firelight, keeping watch while not looking into the undoing of her being.
“I will keep the darkness away,” Laxxie stated.
With their roles set, those that could sleep, did.
…
A mare’s scream woke everyone and set Gil and Kiwe on guard. The whole party gathered together and faced down the road where the noise had come from. The sun was rising, hidden behind the forest, but the light illuminated the road far enough to see a mare galloping toward them.
Snickers, Silver, and Diamond Tiara squinted at the mare wearing a blue hat and cape. “Hey,” Silver said. “Isn’t that that Trixie mare?”
Snickers’s ears flicked. “You mean the one that turned my mom green?”
Silver hummed. “She also got those two dummies to bring an Ursa Minor to the town. I wonder what she’s doing here.”
Trixie noticed the foals and rushed to them. Snickers saw the mare and screamed, turned to run, and tumbled over Laxxie. He looked back at the mare again. “It’s a trick! A monster! Don’t you see it?!” Snickers shouted, pointing at Trixie.
Trixie’s ears drooped. “Oh,” she said, dejectedly for an instant before swelling with confidence. “Well, no matter,” she announced and reared up, flaring her forelegs in the air. “The great and powerful Trixie has arrived to save you from this horrid forest. Let’s make sparks and fly out of this place.”
Silver and Diamond were helping Snickers to his hooves as he tried to put more distance between Trixie and himself. “Stay back! You won’t get us if I have anything to say about it.”
Laxxie looked between Snickers and Trixie. “I do not understand, she is ugly, but has a good spirit. She is a pony like you, father.”
Snickers shook his head and looked at the mare again, his stomach turning. “That is not a pony! It’s… a zombie, or something!”
Diamond held Snickers tightly while Silver and Kiwe stood between Snickers and Trixie. “Tell me, what do you see,” Kiwe asked Snickers, being one of the few that knew illusory magic didn’t work on Snickers.
Snickers grimaced at the thought of seeing Trixie. “She has one dead eye, like it was burned out. It’s scarred, really bad. Her muzzle is broken and she’s missing most of her teeth from what I saw. Her forelegs are padded wood, I think. At least from the elbow down… and most of her coat is just… gone. She’s covered with scars on her head and legs and… her tail is gone. The only places that look normal is her hind legs, and those are scarred with cut lines. Whatever happened to her, it was horrible.”
Trixie blanched and backed away a step, looking at her blue forelegs and patting her face and muzzle. “H-how? How do you know what the Great and Powerful Trixie looks like?”
Snickers buried his face in Diamond’s chest and shivered as Trixie spoke. Her voice sounded gravely and rough to his ears, like a mare that smoked for a living and worked only to support her habit.
Kiwe used his magic to remove a vial from his girth strap and held it by his horn. “Is she dangerous?” He asked Snickers.
Snickers didn’t answer, unable to look at the mare.
Trixie sat and waved a foreleg. “No! Trixie is no danger, honest. She is merely the victim of a long life of bad luck and unfortunate happenings and dealings. She looks this way,” she gestured to her pristine unicorn body, unsure of who could see her true self, “because making explosives is dangerous work, but the show is worth it.”
Everyone stared at Trixie, and Snickers peeked an eye at the mare and flinched back into Diamond’s chest fluff. “I don’t know about who she is, just that she’s scary and ugly.”
Diamond and Silver were silent, sharing a contemplative look, when Cress landed between the groups. Gil had taken perch in a tree to watch the unfolding drama. Cress pulled the stick from her bag again and held it in the crook of her foreleg. “I’ve heard of you, and you’re not a bad pony…
“...but, if you even try to harm anypony here, I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do. Now, what are you doing here, outside the veil?”
Trixie smirked at the bat-filly. “Aren’t you cute, playing guard. Well, all this aside, the Great and Powerful Trixie is going to meet an old friend in Frand, the next city on the path, after it turns into an actual road. If you’d like to travel with her, she will gladly lead you from this awful forest by sunset, as long as you can keep up with her pace.”
A moment of deliberation and the group agreed to follow Trixie, but Snickers would be in the back with his fillies. Cress chose to keep guard of the mare, unsure of how to take her with what Snickers had said about her. “You know,” Cress said from above Snickers, “looks don’t make the pony.
“Just because you see a disfigured mare, doesn’t make her bad. Right? Besides, she keeps herself hidden to look better.”
Diamond and Silver stared at Trixie as she began telling Laxxie a story involving herself and a bandit gang.
“I dunno. She’s, like, always looked like that. Wouldn’t that kind of illusion be impossible to keep going for so long?” Diamond asked.
Cress slowed down and took wing to fly over the herd. “No, if a pony casts a spell enough, then the spell can last longer and longer. I did some research on unicorn magic once. It’s how they can make stuff levitate and not get headaches, or worse.”
Silver thanked Cress for the information when Cress noticed Trixie getting close to the edge of the road. Telling her story, Trixie began to rear up and flourish her legs in different ways, causing her own incident.
Trixie turned away, slipped from the path with a yelp, and vanished. Cress took to the air and chirped several times in the area the mare had fallen, then she dived into the bushes at ground level. There was a tense moment before Trixie scampered back onto the trail with Cress behind her, holding the same stick as from before; this time in her mouth.
“Sweet Celestia’s flaming teats, that was close,” Trixie panted. “Thanks, filly. If you didn’t distract that thing…” Trixie gulped and stood up. “Trixie would have had to vanquish it herself. You saved Trixie some needed magic, and she appreciates you.”
Cress stepped back from Trixie’s attempt to ruffle her mane. “Yeah, I don’t know you enough to let you touch me. So, don’t.”
Trixie laughed, heartily. “Trixie likes you, and to show it, she will tell you of how she helped distract an Ursa Minor, once.”
Moods rose at that, and after gathering their supplies, with Trixie standing several paces ahead of the group talking about herself… to herself, they set off. Snickers made it a point to avoid looking at her, though.
“Snickers?” Diamond asked.
“What’s wrong?” Silver added.
“What do you see that we don’t?” The fillies chorused, then shared a confused look. “How’d you do that. Stop it. No, you stop it!”
“Both of you stop it!” Snickers shouted. He didn’t acknowledge the looks everyone gave him and stayed quiet after his outburst. “Look, I can’t… I just don’t know how to feel about her. She’s… hideous.”
Silver glared at the mare ahead of them all. “I don’t see it, though. Maybe you’re seeing her personality, or whatever.”
Snickers shook his head. “No, it’s the real her. Like when I saw Auntie Luna for the first time and freaked out.”
“Ohhh,” both fillies chorused again. “Well, it’s good you’re doing better now. You were like a foal on their first Nightmare Night in a big city.” Silver said.
“Yeah, you were gonna barf on me, I thought. Which would have been seriously not okay.” Diamond added.
Cress slacked back and asked, “Who was gonna barf?”
Snickers looked up. “Go keep watch on Trixie, this is a private conversation.”
Cress saluted and flew ahead of the group. “What is with that filly?” Snickers asked.
“What do you mean, Sweetie?” Diamond asked.
“Just that she doesn’t make sense to me. She’s like me, in a way. She’s young, but knows stuff way ahead of her age. And what’s with that stick she keeps pulling from her bag? It’s just a gnarled tree branch, why’s it so special? And--”
Snickers stopped and mumbled, then sighed and closed his eyes as Diamond kissed him. Silver gave them a sweet look and moved closer. Diamond moved back and Silver took over, making Snickers hum in contentment. “Such soft lips,” he whispered and opened his eyes to see Silver when he started with Diamond.
“Ooo, which one of us are you talking about?” Diamond asked, teasingly.
“And what lips do you want to kiss tonight?” Silver asked, turning and flagging her tail to tease Snickers.
Snickers gawked at the sight, his jaw slacked open when Diamond moved beside Silver and copied her.
“Ah, uh, um… guh?” Snickers stammered as he glanced left to right at the prizes in front of him.
“Hey, Trixie isn’t going to wait while you have underage premarital sex! Hurry, or be left behind,” the mare called and took the lead again.
Snickers blushed brightly and embarredly rushed past his giggling fillies to catch up to the others before he was left too far behind.