//------------------------------// // Chapter Three: Creeping Flames, Creeping Fears // Story: Ouroboros // by OfTheIronwilled //------------------------------// One good thing about having Pinkie Pie as a best friend was that you quickly got used to things spontaneously combusting. Panic flared in Twilight’s chest for a split second as she coughed against smoke, but then immediately she was lighting her horn and casting a bubble above her. She enveloped a splash of rainwater with a flare of magic, squeezed it down to a tight water-balloon of telekinesis, and let loose a high-pressure stream of water at the flame nearest to her. She noticed that the fire was glowing a ghastly white at the exact moment the water sloshed against the flame and spewed an acrid cloud of smoke. There was an ugly hiss, a pop, and then… nothing. The white flames kept crawling closer, waving larger and larger all around. Twilight pulled her tail tight against her thighs. Sweat poured down her coat and dripped from her mane already, the heat was so unbearable. She had to squint against the white light burning into her eyes. She didn’t have time to think. Water didn’t extinguish it. Next on the list: suffocation. Another bubble of magic, over the flames. She smashed down with as much force as she could muster - and considering the fact that Rainbow Dash had nearly exploded earlier, she half expected to blast a crater into the earth. But the fires flickered and pushed against her magic with equal force. Smoke rolled against the magic and flowed into the pores of it in such a sickening way that Twilight nearly lost her balance. Twilight tried a few more times, her quick breaths rasping heat into her lungs. After a few tries she thought enough to teleport a small orb of oxygen from the ground below into her lungs, and then kneel down into the dirt. Then she attempted to grab at the flames themselves, wrangling the leylines around the hot eels of plasma-- Snap. Twilight felt the pain of a failed spell crash against her horn, but as the crackling around her grew louder she couldn’t register any pain. She stumbled back, drawing herself down into the ashy dirt and taking as controlled breaths as she could. Her eyes flicked around. Nothing but white, and the charcoal-shadows of trees. It almost looked like they were popping in and out of place, the sea of smoke was obstructing her vision so much. She couldn’t see the girls. For some reason the fire was rebelling against her magic, even with it being so powerful. Her mind raced. Her ears flapped wildly on her head, desperately listening for anything, anything, that wasn’t the snap of the fire. A white inferno, blazing ever and ever higher, creeped closer. The twigs Rarity had set out as shelter caught ablaze and then-- Another pop. Instantly, Twilight couldn’t see them anymore. A few strands of her tail hair wafted in the hot wind and grazed at a white wall. Twilight thought about teleporting, but she couldn’t see anything and she didn’t know where the hay she even was, really. If she stayed here she could get burned alive, but if she teleported she could suffocate in a tree, in the ground, smash herself to smithereens inside of a rock-- She heaved a gulp. Almost on instinct, the tiny wings on her back flared against her sides. She stretched them up far as they’d go, and then, with a very first pump of new muscles, shoved down hard. The flap shot her up into the sky; Twilight squealed as she rocketed up almost to the canopy, and as the oxygen funneled downwards from her feather tips and roared against the flames below in a spiral of fire. The world swam for a second, as she immediatel;y dropped like a stone again- so she flapped again. After a few clumsy tries, she managed to get a sort-of rhythm down. And she hadn’t burned to death!  With a half-dizzy laugh, Twilight spun around on her new wings. She shoved her foreleg over her nose as the smoke rose around her, and squinted her eyes below. Desperately searched for Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy, or any of the girls. Below, the forest floor was alight, nothing but an ocean of pale embers. Grey clouds roiled over everything, heavy and smelling so sickly. And the trees… “Huh?” Taking a moment to really look, Twilight noticed that the trees were behaving oddly to the heat. Before, she hadn’t been imagining the trees popping in and out of existence amidst the smoke. They really were moving; as the flames crawled across them and stained the edges of the bark a tar-black, they let out a mighty pop, and then vanished into thin air as if being swallowed instantly by the flames. Her first thought was that this was some kind of defense mechanism the trees and vines were using to avoid death, or fire actually quickening the burning, but then she looked closer.  With a thought, Twilight grabbed an orb of water and threw it against the fire again. And yes, the water did hiss and steam, but not all of it. It, too, partially vanished. A split second later, a small sheet of water formed over Twilight’s head with another loud cracking noise, and lapped at her sweaty mane. Twilight hadn’t been trying to do that. In fact, she had quenched her horn the instant she dispelled her orb of telekinesis. Twilight was struck with a memory of Spike belching up letters. She nearly slapped herself. She even barked out another strained laugh. Of course! No wonder the fire had reacted to her magic in such a way - it was composed of a particularly resistant kind of magic itself! The initial heat of the fire was scorching, but then everything was being moved, more or less intact, to another part of the forest! As a wave of heat enveloped her, burning the edges of her coat with an awful stench, Twilight didn’t bat an eyelash. Speaking of which, she might not have any eyelashes left after this, but at the moment she didn’t care. She let herself be swallowed alive by the fire. The dragonfire. Pop! Twilight let herself have a self-satisfied harrumph as her vision swam, and then she was dropped somewhere else. After she picked herself up from the dry grass and brushed herself off, anyway. After all, she was right! And she’d wager... Twilight turned around and let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Just a few feet away, laying in a pile on the forest floor, were her friends! Rainbow had gotten the worst of it, seeing as she was at the bottom of the ponypile and Pinkie Pie’s hoof was smashed into her ear, and sure, Rarity wouldn’t be too happy about her burnt fetlocks-- but they were okay! “Not gonna lie,” Rainbow groaned, as she shimmied Pinkie Pie off of her, “getting kinda tired of getting thrown around by magic today. What in the hay was that about?” Fluttershy was next to extract herself, gently lifting Rarity up from the ground alongside her. With a gentle coo, she immediately started to brush Rarity’s singed mane with a hoof, until she saw ashes and smoke still rolling over their heads. Her teeth clacked together, ner nostrils flared along with her wings, and she shivered fiercely - her body was terrified, but even from here Twilight could see something else boiling in her eyes. “Twilight,” she breathed, so tight, “the fire is still going! I- I thought I had set the firepit up correctly and-- and now-- Oh, Twilight, the animals--” “The animals?” Applejack barked. She smashed her hat, scorched and curling at the edges, back onto her mane and started backpedalling from the nearby inferno. The teleportation flames had taken them further into the forest, where the fire hadn’t yet touched, but already it was curling closer in the distance. “I appreciate the concern for the critters, Sug, but what about us? You didn’t exactly teleport us all the way out of this mess, Twi.” Twilight crushed Fluttershy’s shivering body close and gave AJ a pat on the withers. “Don’t worry girls, I didn’t teleport us here and I didn’t need to. And Fluttershy, this isn’t your fault. This fire isn’t entirely natural, see?” She flashed her horn to life and stretched out a band of magic energy so the others could see the way the smoke repelled away from it, how the embers tried to burn a hole through the forcefield itself before they were forced to flee instead. “This is dragonfire, like the kind Spike uses when he sends Celestia our letters. I didn’t move us here, it did.” Rarity hummed, opting to shimmy in place instead of scrub at the charcoal smears in her coat. “That would explain what happened to me. Why, I thought that I was about to be swallowed up and burn to death! So as the fire touched me I clenched my eyes and- well, then I was here.” “Exactly! And it’s doing to same to all the life in the forest. The heat of the magic is enough to burn initially, but then the matter that’s engulfed is just sent somewhere else.” Fluttershy’s wings fluffed at her sides, and she pressed hard into Twilight’s nuzzle. “So-- the animals--” “They should be fine, Fluttershy. I won’t lie, some of them might get singed, but as long as we stop this from spreading it won’t do too much harm.” “Well, that’s dandy and all, Twilight, but how are we supposed to stop the fire? Don’t seem like the rain or your magic is workin’,” Applejack asked. And… Twilight sighed through her aching lungs and took a few steps towards the blaze. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She had only surrendered herself to the flames because every other option she could think of so far hadn’t worked. The water was mostly teleported when used, the dragon magic resisted her attempts at suffocating it, and at this point Twilight suspected her trusty last-ditch effort Failsafe spell would, well, fail. There was the possibility that the fire would douse itself, but given that it had a powerful magical source, that would only happen once the caster (breather?) brought the intensity of the firebreath down a few hundred notches and maybe even helped extinguish it. And that meant… “Wait,” Pinkie Pie chirped. “If that’s a bunch of dragonfire, doesn’t that mean that there’s some big, angry dragon snoring on everything in there somewhere? Because normally I would say that fixing that would be a piece of cake, because normally I would have a piece of cake as a peace offering, and Fluttershy would be able to use her Stare to make even the grumpiest of grumpy-pants listen. But there isn’t cake anywhere out here and Fluttershy is… not doing so good.” Twilight turned back to see Pinkie Pie scooping Fluttershy up in a soft cradle. Fluttershy’s eyes were strained and watery at the edges, and her wings and hooves shook like leaves. Her breathing was under control at the moment, but her face was starting to go blank and-- Right. Fluttershy was still terrified of dragons to an extent, and this one had just burned a forest filled with little animal friends. Not to mention all the other craziness that had gone on today. Twilight could still remember Fluttershy, with Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark, with that fake, fake smile plastered to her face as she desperately failed to make the ponies around her happy like her mark told her to. As everypony laughed at her poor attempts instead of with her. Twilight flicked her tail as if snapping at flies. Pushed that thought away. She had already been forgiven for that, and right now she needed to focus. Okay, so there was probably a very large dragon setting fire to the woods somewhere deep within it. They didn’t know where it was, or why it was teleporting things around, but Twilight did know that, based on the size, color, and heat of these teleportation flames? This was a powerful dragon. The old grouch who snored smoke over Ponyville would be nothing but a lizard compared to this strength. So, if she assumed that this dragon was as uncooperative and anti-friendship as the other dragons (minus Spike) she had ever seen up to this point? Twilight was nothing but confident that Fluttershy would rise to the occasion when she had to, but this situation wasn’t ideal. They couldn’t just leave this burning, could they? If this dragon was a jerk, he could carelessly let this inferno rage on and scramble the scenery of this whole region. Or he could decide that that was too boring and let out the acidic dark dragonfire that was actually meant to burn.  On the other hoof, who knew what was happening to Equestria right now while Twilight was sitting here thinking about dragons? Or, no, what if this was some part of Equestria? Twilight wanted to throw a pillow over her head and scream. But she couldn’t. With a breath, Twilight turned once again and looked at her friends. While Pinkie Pie continued to pet Fluttershy, the others seemed just as lost in desperate thought as she was. They were invaluable, a steady rock in the chaos that had been the last day, but they weren’t the ones who Celestia had called on. They weren’t the ones with… Twilight rolled the unfamiliar muscles lodged unnaturally in her back, felt magic bubble both in her horn and her feathertips. Twilight didn’t realize her breath had gone raspy until Rarity gave her a nuzzle. “Twilight, darling, are you quite alright?” She swallowed and nodded sharply in response. “Of course! Everything is fine. Everything will be fine. We can figure this out.” Rarity opened her mouth to say more, but Twilight spun away from her before she could speak. She stared out at the flames, crackling and popping with the displacement of trees and fauna, and weighed her options. Well, Twilight supposed, before she came to a decision it would be best to at least try the Failsafe spell. The Failsafe spell, one of the spells she had learned during her studies in Ponyville, was one that worked best when the mage casting it was calm and steady. Twilight fell to the lull of meditation, of the matrices she’d need to recreate dancing in her mind, and breathed harsh through the nose. The faint burn of ash coated her nostrils and throat, and she could smell singed pony hair wafting around her, but she cast that aside with a twitch of her ears. She envisioned the way the spell was crafted, how she had performed it multiple times before, and prepped her horn. Then the noise around her stopped. All at once. Twilight hadn’t even cast the spell yet. With a panicked breath, Twilight’s eyes snapped open, her wings flared. Her head darted around with a flick of her burned mane and-- yes, there were her friends. There but silent and-- staring? Pinkie Pie was cocking her head against Fluttershy’s neck, her mouth a confused little “O”. What was it? The dragon? Twilight’s vision swivelled violently to the direction her friends were staring. The fire had gone out. Silently, without pomp or circumstance, the flames died into a quiet nothing. The forest, once filled with movement, jumping randomly with the visages of moving plants, went cold still as the flames waned and died down to sizzling gray embers. Besides the singe marks marring the bark, the thin coat of ash clinging to the soil, the cloying after-scent of smoke, it was almost normal. Peaceful. Then: “Twilight?!” Spike, with two leathery little dragon wings fumbling around on his back, came crashing through the underbrush. For a few beautiful moments, Twilight was the calmest she had ever felt in her entire life. Her chest surged with gentle warmth, her hooves felt light as air, her eyes pricked with happy tears, because-- Spike. Oh, Spike! At the back of her mind, where she had shoved back the afterimage of Celestia’s choking spasms, Twilight had constantly been thinking of everypony else, of all her friends and family in Equestria being filled up with dark magic and screeching in pain while their veins pooled with black ichor. The idea that Spike, her Spike, could be in so much agony, an agony that had brought even Celestia to tears, it… Twilight just couldn’t take it, it was too awful…  But Spike was here. He was here, and alive, and babbling something into her ear as she crushed him into a hug. The others crowded around as well, with Rarity giving one of his little ear spines a nuzzle. Fluttershy dipped forward with a soft coo, and held out her hoof to nudge at his… new wings... Wait. Are you kidding me?! “What,” she squeaked, “in the hoof is happening?!” And then Twilight was snorting and flicking her tail, and maybe even sort of thrashing Spike around like a ragdoll, because none of this made any sense. Now Spike was here, which wasn’t supposed to happen because the spell Celestia cast was only supposed to send the element bearers, so who in Equestria knew what else was screwed up, and apparently he even had wings now? And she didn’t even get to see him go through the molting process?! She had been looking forward to that, darnit! “I-I-I-I don’t kno-o-o-ow?!” Spike groaned as his head bobbed back and forth. Twilight shook him by the tiny shoulders, silently begging him and the entire universe which was currently laughing at her to give her the answers she needed, any answer, anything-- but then that was only causing his new wings, around the size of her own, to flop limply around and slap gently against his sides, thus calling attention to the fact that they were, indeed, very real and still there, and that just made it all worse and-- “Now,” Rarity tutted softly to Twilight’s side. Immediately, a gentle blue aura grabbed her shaking hooves to a stop, enveloped Spike, and lifted him out of Twilight’s grasp and to the ground below. He staggered a bit, his eyes swirling, but after a moment Rarity managed to balance him with another flick of her horn. “Honestly, Twilight, I know we’re all quite stressed, but there’s no need to shake poor Spikey-Wikey. At least let him explain his side of the story, hmm?” With a rush, Twilight deflated. The sharp pinch that had been building in her chest, churning in her gut, faded and just left her feeling hot with embarrassment. And looking at Spike, still recovering and a little singed, she couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty too. Who knew what Spike had gone through, and then she couldn’t hold herself together long enough to even comfort him. Still, before she could wallow or go down a spiral, Fluttershy gently patted her withers, and Spike shook off his dizziness enough to shrug. “Eh,” he muttered, “honestly, you get kind of used to her doing that sort of thing after a while. Anyway, that’s not important. I mean…” Spike turned and rubbed a claw at his new wings. “I nearly burned you guys. I didn’t even know I could do that.” Before Spike could even think about blaming himself, Twilight had scooped him up into a hug. Gentler this time. Her friends joined her without her saying a word. “Don’t worry Spike, Twilight told us that nopony or anyone or any of the critters got hurt,” Fluttershy said. Rarity nuzzled up to him, her eyes clenched tight. “Oh, and don’t you dare feel bad about my mane, Spikey. Why, if anything I’m just overjoyed to see my favorite little dragon safe!” While Spike blushed up to his ear-spines, Rainbow Dash swooped down and patted him on the back. “Yeah, are you kidding? Sure we may have got kinda singed, but that’s just what happens sometimes when you’re testing out an awesome new trick, right? I just can’t believe you had it in you.” “Well I for one,” Applejack snorted, “am just wonderin’ what got you to go breathin’ fire in the first place. ‘Course I know you wouldn’t do such a thing in the forest without good reason, or if you could help it.” Spike’s eyes snapped open wide. Immediately he bounced up in place and smacked his claws to his head. Twilight hadn’t seen him so worked up since he tried to tell them all that Rarity had been abducted by Diamond Dogs. “Ah! That’s right!I did have a reason! I mean, first I ended up here all on my own after the Elements started glowing, and then there was this--” A screeching yell ripped through the forest. Something squeaky, but deadly sharp. Twilight’s coat stood on end, and her tiny wings sprung open with a yelp. Beside her, Fluttershy collapsed into a shivering ball. “Um, that” Spike coughed through chattering teeth. “There’s some huge monster in here with us!” Of course there was. Twilight would have laughed if she wasn’t busy grinding her teeth. And then they all heard the screams. Before even taking a breath, Twilight drew magic from her core and flared it outwards into a shield. Another flick of her horn and built up that magic into another layer - an adjustment to the matrices of her shield spell and that outer layer hardened , thickened into a sparkling purple carapace. “Woah, Twilight! What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash squeaked. Twilight stopped. Blinked. Rainbow was a few hoof-falls away, tapping at the inside of her bubble. And Twilight herself, she… She couldn’t breathe. She gasped hard, her chest hot. “I-I’m sorry for not warning before casting, girls, it’s just… I…” She hadn’t been able to control herself. She hadn’t even thought before putting up that shield. It was just… Celestia. Canterlot. The vision of that galloping poisonous darkness, swallowing ponies whole as they begged for help. Celestia, flailing in agony at that magic’s caustic touch– Twilight had thought for sure that this was it. Those screams– it was all over. She could picture that smoke barreling over the hills, tearing through her friends and rotting them apart into the blackness  while all she could do was sit and watch. Because she’d messed up. Because she’d already somehow failed. Ponies somewhere were screaming and soon she and her friends were going to die and Equestria was going to fall because she couldn’t finish this one task and– But still nothing happened. More yells echoed through the tree branches, but now that she focused on them, it didn’t sound a thing like Canterlot. Not even close. And when she turned to the source of that noise, there was nothing. No cloud of magic coming to tear them apart. Just smoke. Just… she tried to breathe. It was just smoke. Her friends were staring at her like she’d finally lost it. Nearby, Pinkie Pie bounced over and tapped at the shield, the vibration of it rattling up Twilight’s horn. “Come on, Twilight,” she chirped with a shimmy of her tail. “Sounds like somepony’s calling for a rescue party. Which isn’t as fun as a party-party, but maybe we can throw them one of those too. You know, once we’re done saving them and all.” “No, of course, you’re right,” Twilight muttered. “Let me just…” Twilight brought her hoof to her chest, the way Cadance would want her to. She ignored the way Fluttershy was staring at her. She dropped her shield like a calm, rational, totally-not-freaking-out-pony. She could do this. “Come on girls. We should figure out what those ponies are yelling about before something else gets way out of control.” Then, with a flick of her tail, she followed Pinkie Pie towards the screams. Twilight galloped hard to keep up with Pinkie as she bounced through the forest. Thankfully it seemed that the noise of the commotion was taking them away from the remnants of Spike’s dragonfire, and quickly the shifting gray ash underhoof was replaced with a spongy, pleasantly cool carpet of peat. The foliage grew denser, the smell of smoke lifted, and eventually Pinkie Pie disappeared into a thick wall of ivy and moss ahead. Twilight, panting (it had been a while since the Running of the Leaves, and she was out of practice when it came to running), barrelled after her, and nearly tripped over herself as her horseshoes clacked against something hard. With a snort, she looked down. It was… a road? A path, well-worn with the indents of hoofsteps, made up of evenly spaced bricks of some sort pressed into the earth. She tapped at one of the bricks with the tip of a hoof and the material, newly wet from the rainfall still dripping from the canopy above, depressed oh-so slightly at the touch. Next to the indention she left were older ones, faded over time. They were thinner and smaller than hers, and lacked shoes. Around her, her friends didn’t pay much mind to the development. Fluttershy and Spike gave her a gentle nudge as they came up from the back, and Twilight shook her head to focus. She looked forward, where Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Applejack just began to reach the apex of a small hill marked with two huge stones at either side. When they just crested the hill– they stopped. Hard. Applejack’s hat nearly flew off her head. With a harsh whinny, Twilight scooped Spike up onto her back, took one second to make sure that Rarity made it through the wall of ivy, then charged up the hill to meet them. As she reached the top aside Applejack, her forelegs screaming from the effort, she heard that screech again. A horrible, tinny noise that tore down her spine and made some instinctual part of her deep down want to rear up and turn tail. Next came a few more screams and grunts which seemed like ponies, but… no, there was a bit of a deeper snort at the back of some of the vocalizations, and the more she focused the more it seemed like some of the equine-folk were barking out foreign words. None she fully recognized from her studies, but it did sound familiar. Almost like… Twilight’s eyes just crested the hill, and she gazed down into a dense valley through the gaps in the tree branches. Below… Deerfolk! She knew it!  A crowd of deer stood in a thick crowd, standing tall with their tails flicking wildly. The bucks roared, drew their heads down and rattled at their antlers as they barked out threats in a language Twilight could barely grasp. Behind them were a few interspersed earth ponies. They yelled too, and in their hooves and clenched in their teeth they grasped what looked like some sort of farming tools. As the bucks charged forward with an intimidating shake of their giant antlers, the ponies followed suit. One mare spat from behind her weapon, then threw a heavy hoof as if swinging at something. At first it wasn’t clear what they were attacking, a dark layer of shrubbery and leaves muddying an already-dark battlefield. But something shot through the branches and– Eyes! Giant eyes ripped through a tree trunk. Something caught hard at the bark, and with a horrible groaning that shook the ground, the wood splintered and ripped out of place. It flew into the air, whizzed past so fast the air rippled and whistled in its wake. Wood shrapnel dusted the entire clearing, then as it settled to the floor the creature’s head was fully revealed. Except it wasn’t as large of a head as Twilight expected, and those things she’d seen weren’t eyes. A bat– a huge bat with rows of hotly-glowing razors for teeth, shrieked. It’s wings were larger than the trees themselves, cramped into the space. One of the claws of those spindly fingers was snared up with the remnants of the tree it had just chucked through the woods, bark and vines choking the limb. A pattern ran down the leathery wings and the creature's chest; just like the bat’s teeth, which glittered like diamonds in the dusk, two eye-like streaks shone bright at the deer below. The bat squealed as it tugged harshly at its wing. There was a creak, an awful crunch, and as blood splattered out from its crooked thumb joint its pattern burned ever brighter, dazzling so bright everypony squealed. In a flash, a sharp white light pierced Twilight’s retinas, the pain lancing all around her head and into her horn. Twilight threw herself to the ground, pressed her hooves desperately to her stinging eyes as spots danced behind her eyelids. She felt Spike shift wildly on her back, and heard him thump to the bricks beside her. Instantly she opened her eyes, searching for him– but still all she could see was that glaring wall of light. “Girls! Are you okay?!” she barked, desperately scrabbling her hooves. One of them bumped at Spike’s scales, and she scooped him up to curl him up against her ribcage. She could tell by his groaning and the rhythmic shaking of his body that he was still rubbing his eyes with furiosity. “What in tarnation was that?!” Applejack whinnied. “Can’t see my hoof in front of my face!” “It’s some sort of bat, I believe. But don’t worry; it’s still a ways away, and it didn’t look like it was coming in our direction. Just don’t look directly at it!” As Twilight squinted, the world slowly started coming into view again. The dancing spots died and ebbed, but it was slow-going. From behind a shielding hoof she tried her best to glance past the grubby splotches and find out what was happening. Groaning sounded out below from the deerfolk and earth ponies, but still they roared and bleated at the bat in defiance. “Ouuugh, jeez, I know a disco-ball-spotlight-combo is a must-have for any good party, but this is just a little too much,” Pinkie whimpered. “How are we going to throw our rescue party when we can’t see anything?” Twilight strangled down a shout of frustration. “I don’t know! For now just stick close together and wait for your vision to clear. Then maybe we can–” “Excuse me, Mr. Bat, but, um, that light is kind of hurting my eyes. Do you think that maybe you could turn it down just a tiny bit, and then when I can see again maybe we can all work together to get your poor little wing out of that nasty bind you’ve got it in.” Oh, thank the Stars Above that Fluttershy was here. She might not be able to use her Stare reliably right now, but from the sounds of it, and from what little Twilight could begin to see as her eyes readjusted, she had already started to handle the situation. Even the deer and earth ponies had calmed, no longer barking out threats and instead mumbling quietly to themselves as the trees and shrubbery noisily shuffled nearby. Eventually Twilight’s eyes cleared, and she blinked around at the scene below. Fluttershy flew up close to the bat, so tiny next to it, and rubbed a gentle hoof to its injured wing while she cooed. The monster practically melted in her hooves. It’s tiny eyes were glittering, while the shining of it’s markings had dulled to a pretty glow. The deer and earth ponies all muttered to themselves, and at some point they’d gathered together in a tight clump of bodies. Twilight noticed that their behavior had completely changed, and not in a way she expected; while they had all raved and fought against that giant bat creature, now that they saw her timid little pegasus friend they were down-right cowering. A fawn in the back had gone still and unblinking, barely breathing, his forelegs rattling in place. Well. Out of all the things she’d faced today, Twilight reasoned that a little shyness and unfriendliness was the easiest problem to solve. With a sigh, Twilight strotted down the hill. As she, Spike, and the others got closer, the deer’s fidgeting increased. They bleated faster amongst themselves, and their eyes grew wider. Twilight watched every movement, and noticed that out of all of them, the deer’s eyes seemed to focus mostly on Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and her. An earth pony mare, the one who’d swiped her tool at the bat, had dropped her trowel to the dirt and was staring so, so intently at Twilight’s little wings. Twilight felt a chill run down to the dock of her tail. She couldn’t help but flex her wings again, feel the feathers brush her side. Even after flying, she’d already almost forgotten they were there. As she twitched her primary feathers, the mare’s eyes only widened further. Twilight guessed that perhaps the deer tribe possibly hadn’t ever seen a pegasus around their forest, as any that could have flown through in the past would have been shrouded by the thick overhead canopy. If these earth ponies were born in the area and were disconnected from their pony roots, that could also explain their reaction. But… no. That just didn’t seem correct. That mare’s stare, the stares of the creatures around her… they were remembering. Something bad. Twilight sighed, but then put on her friendliest smile. She’d just need to show them that she and her friends weren’t a threat to them. Nearby, Fluttershy cooed one last time at the bat, and with giant flaps of its wings which swirled the leaves around them in a hurricane of displaced air, it took off. The deer took a second to watch it go, then snapped back to the group of ponies and a dragon approaching them. Twilight looked around at the girls and Spike, and then stepped forward with a small clearing of her throat. The deer and ponies glanced between one another. After a few bleats shared amongst them, there was some shuffling, and one deer, a large, muscled buck, stepped forward to greet her. Despite the distance of a few hoof-falls between them, when he politely nodded his head to Twilight, the gnarled antlers nearly scraped her snout. He grunted some sort of greeting to her. Twilight racked her brain, thinking through every scrap of information she’d read on the deerfolk and their multiple languages, but this didn’t seem like any she’d heard of before. Even when the buck tried to bleat a few more words her way, it just didn’t ring any bells. “Oh, um, hello!” she tried. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Would anycreature here happen to now Equuish?” The buck just stared blankly back at her. “Uh,” Rainbow Dash started. She seemed to have noticed the crowd staring at her like she was going to eat their brains, and was crossing her hooves protectively across herself. “That seems like a ‘no’. Anypony else know what they’re saying?” Twilight turned to her friends. She scoured over their faces for any answers, especially Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity was a socialite and had met all kinds of creatures during her fashion studies, and Fluttershy just seemed like the kind of pony to pull some sort of freaky knowledge out of nowhere. It’s been the case with sewing, at least. But the two of them just shrugged helplessly at her. “Oooh, I could try some charades! I’m great at charades,” Pinkie said. Twilight shook her head. “No thank you, Pinkie. I think I know a translation spell that should work. Well, at least in theory. It’s been a while since I’ve used it, and usually I used it on books instead of the spoken word anyway, so I’ll have to modify it a bit. Still, I suppose it’s worth a shot.” Applejack flicked her lightly with her tail, and tipped her hat, “Hay, we know you got this, Twi. It’ll be easier than apple pie.” Twilight smiled back at her, then faced the buck before her. He hadn’t moved, still towering tall above her. The muscles of his legs, though, were stiff and taught, and his tiny tail flicked, and Twilight realized that he might only be standing there because he believed he needed to protect his herd from her. If they wanted to part on peaceful terms, or maybe even get some information about where they were, she needed to get this spell right. Twilight closed her eyes, and envisioned the original version of the spell she planned to use. The shapes and matrices came to her after a bit of internal cataloging, and then it was just a case of modifying it. Granted, that was always easier said than done– spell modification always went more smoothly when one had time to adequately break down the real roots of the original, or at least if they had access to quill and paper or… anything, really. Still, she had used this text translation spell to help her studies many times in the past, and she was fairly confident she understood its structure fairly well. In order to change its foundation to work on the spoken word instead, she’d have to adjust this matrix just so, and add a small dash of another spell on top of it… She lit her horn to prep the spell– Spike’s claws dug into her back as he threw himself onto her shoulder, at the same time Rainbow Dash’s wing smacked hard into her chest. Twilight flung her eyes open. Spike was shivering atop her, perched on her with his other claws flashing in front of him. Rainbow Dash snorted in her ear. She was in front of her now, and her wings were shielding Twilight from the deer. When Twilight started the spell, the deer had panicked. The entitle crowd had froze still as stone, their huge eyes blank, and the buck– His antlers were at her throat. Twilight whinnied. Without thinking she stumbled back on shaky hooves, throwing up a hoof that she hoped would be seen as a placating gesture. The buck allowed her to move without following with his antlers, and when she’d backed up a ways he pulled his huge neck back with a snort. His eyes glinted down at her and her friends, hardened and cold and full of promise. “Wait, everypony. Er- everycreature,” she stuttered. As slowly and gently as she could, she pulled Rainbow Dash and Spike back to her sides. When her tail flicked she felt it slap against Applejack’s broad chest, so she also waved a hoof behind her. “It’s alright, girls.” Well, that went worse than she expected. She knew that these deerfolk didn’t trust them much but– she gulped dryly past the lump in her throat, and brought a shivering hoof to her neck. Deer magic from a buck this huge could paralyze her for life with a point-blank shot. And ignoring that, if his antlers were sharp enough… She sucked in a deep breath. This was fine. She just had to find a way to explain what she was doing without being able to speak. That shouldn’t be too hard. Once she could no longer hear Applejack whispering curses at her haunches, she stepped forward to try again. If she couldn’t verbally speak, she’d just have to try something visible instead. So she balanced on her back hooves and brought her forelegs up before the buck before her. Using her hooves to mime motions between her mouth, ears, horn, and the crowd of deer and ponies before her, she tried, “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. This is a translation spell. It will help me understand you.” For a second afterwards, she had to awkwardly balance on her right hind hoof, with the other front ones continuously swirling between her horn and the deer, while she waited for any sign they understood. “Aww, I thought you said we weren’t doing any charades, Twilight. I could have helped,” Pinkie Pie whispered behind her. Rarity shushed her. There was silence. The giant buck anchored there, his gaze never leaving her. A few times his ears flicked. Twilight was just about to get back down and try to think of something else when he finally nodded. Once, a slow, strong nod, followed by him pointing a hoof to himself. Twilight believed she understood. She nodded in return to him, waved her hoof between her horn and the buck one last time just in case, then settled back down to prepare. She completed the spell as quickly as she could manage- which, with her new mana reserves, was actually a breeze. Afterwards she took a step back and tried another shaky smile towards him. “Hello? Can you understand me now?” The buck cleared his throat, “Yes. I can. What is your purpose here? I suppose you’re on a ‘mission’?” He spat the last word with so much venom that Twilight couldn’t help but flinch. Then she tilted her head, and even tried glancing back at her friends to see if they looked any less confused than she did. What the hay was that supposed to mean? Did he know something about why Celestia sent them here? If so, then why would he seem so angry about them trying to seal the dark magic? And if he didn’t know anything about the Seal… honestly that made less sense. “I mean…” Twilight started  “I suppose you could say that. Honestly though, right now we’re just wondering where we are.” Rarity stepped up with a clearing of her throat, and Twilight let her pass with a sigh of relief. She always was much better at these sorts of things than she was. “Ah, yes, my dear gentlesta–creature,” she coughed, “You see, my friends and I had quite the incident with a teleportation spell, and now we’re a bit turned around. We were attempting to gather our bearings when we heard some screaming this way.” The buck snorted. He tossed his head towards a gap in the foliage where, through the dim light of sunset, you could still see the giant bat Fluttershy had tended to bobbing darkly through the clouds. “Yes. And you happened to miraculously appear just in time to tame that beast,” he grunted. “Coming from the direction of what appears to be a fire within our forest, a fire-breather seated upon your back.” Spike shriveled back, wringing his claws together. Twilight’s heart panged for him; she hadn’t seen him look so awfully guilty since his greed had transformed him into a giant monster. She opened her mouth, ready to defend him, but before she could there was a hot snort in her ear. With a growl, Rainbow Dash snapped her wings open. “Hey, wait a second,” she snapped, her voice raspy, “Did you just accuse Fluttershy of bringing that freaky bat-thing here on purpose? She just saved you from that thing!” The huge buck shook. A low rumbling, like the roar of a distant monster, rattled his chest. After a few seconds, Twilight realized that he was laughing at them. “Ah, indeed. I don’t deny that. I just find the timing… convenient.” The fur on Rainbow Dash’s chest bristled as she grunted harsh through her teeth. She raised her wings, and before anypony could say anything she snapped them down to zoom forward, right in the buck’s face.  Agh, no, Rainbow! With a squeak, Twilight desperately flung out a stream of telekinesis; at the same time Applejack shot forward. She snatched Rainbow’s tail in her teeth then yanked her back with a jerk of her neck, as if she were wrangling an angry bull. Still, the buck apparently didn’t take kindly to her attitude. As Rainbow Dash was ripped back and thumped hard to the dusty ground, the buck crouched low, his antlers shimmering, his muscles rippling. Instantly the crowd behind him caught on to the tension, and where before they stood paralyzed, now they shifted back into battle formation. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight and Applejack hissed at the same time. Rainbow Dash only hissed back, “He was accusing Fluttershy.” Twilight instantly put her mind to damage-control. What in Equestria were they going to do now?! They couldn’t fight off a whole army of deer and ponies! But with a tut, Rarity brushed past Twilight. She took a few full paces toward the mob without the blink of an eye. “Come now, everycreature,” she chided, her voice high and breathy as if she were talking to a classroom of foals as opposed to a creature twice her size with razors on his head. “Surely we’re all civilized enough to realize that squabbling would be detrimental to all of us? I promise you, sir, we mean you no harm. Our Spikey is no threat, and the fire was a simple accident that’s been resolved. And why in Equestria would we ever think of bringing a monster just to rescue you from it?” “Oh, don’t mind Gladdy. He’s like this with everybody.” Twilight’s ears flicked at the new feminine voice. Thankfully, the crowd of deer and earth ponies deflated at the sound of it. They all turned away from Twilight and her friends, then parted so that a small shape could shimmy her way to the front. As it walked through all of them bowed, touched their muzzles down to the dirt and pressed their hooves tightly to their chests with breathy whispers of honorifics. They took a wide berth, parting as if a sea to form neat lines on each side of the doe, splaying out their antlers and hooves to form what was essentially a red carpet for what Twilight automatically assumed was some sort of royal. And as she got close enough to see clearly– Honestly, Twilight wasn’t sure what she expected. The only time she’d seen anycreature show such respect to another creature was with Princess Celestia; she was a mighty, large, clearly powerful alicorn who raised the sun, and so Twilight’s first instinct was that this doe would look something similar. Surely a towering, gorgeous deer, dripping with ivy and forest magic would walk through. The thought was intimidating, and so Twilight fell to a quick curtsy before even fully processing what she was seeing. But this doe, when she stepped up next to that buck – Gladdy? Well, next to him she looked positively tiny. Miniscule, even! Where he was a giant dark brown wall of muscle, this doe was petite and thin, smaller than even the fawn Twilight had seen shivering earlier. A few spots even still shone bright against her sandy coat, having not yet faded from her fawnhood. She was a child! Even still, Gladdy yielded to her. He bowed deep and heavy at her arrival, and with a low grumble allowed her to push forward. The doe took a dainty step forward and greeted Rarity with a gentle dip of her head. Unlike the cold, hard stare of the buck behind her, the doe’s almond eyes were clear with calm, and her stature held an aura of serenity which was only enhanced by the crown woven over her huge ears. She smiled softly to Rarity, and the multicolored flower threaded into the center of her tiara glimmered in the wan light. She was clearly a royal in this sense, at least, and Twilight cleared her throat and searched her memories for the proper etiquette she should take. “Hello there,” the little deer greeted. “I’m Princess Hazel. And I take it that you’re the ponies who chased the bat away?” But before Rarity or Twilight could say anything, Hazel’s expression shifted. One moment she was the picture of beauty and grace, the fawn-queen of an unknown deer kingdom, but then – she snorted. Then giggled. Then started hopping in place. Pinkie Pie started bouncing with her. “Aaand,” she squeaked, waggling her eyebrows up and down towards Fluttershy (Fluttershy made a sort of peeping noise and ducked behind her mane), “you have magic?! Gladiolus!” She snapped around so quickly her tiara whipped off her head, hooking onto her right ear for dear life. She zoomed up to the buck, Gladiolus, in a flash, practically throwing herself on top of him; he just leveled his icy stare at her with a low, rumbling grunt. “What were you thinking?” she snapped. “You know they couldn’t have brought that bat here. It’s been causing us trouble for days, and these lovely ponies have been kind enough to use their gifts to rid us of it.” Gladiolus didn’t attempt to answer her. Which was just as well, because in a blink she was shimmying in place before Rarity again. Fanning herself with a hoof, she squealed, “Oh gosh, it has been such a long time since the village has seen any magic-users. Oh, and I’ve got to thank you properly for saving our herd, of course. Please, please let us thank you properly.” Rarity giggled, in that breathy way she did whenever a stallion came on just a little too strong. “Well, dear, we do appreciate the generous offer of course, but, hm…” she started, and then threw a frantic glance to Twilight. And, well. That certainly wasn’t what Twilight was expecting. Any of it, at all. Frantically, she started to sort through their current situation in her head once again. It was true that their last shelter had burnt to ashes, and they still weren’t clear on what exactly they were doing– but maybe some of the deerfolk possibly knew about the Seal? “A-Actually,” Twilight stammered. “Like my friend Rarity said, we do appreciate the offer, but we’re actually trying to find our way to something important at the moment. You wouldn’t happen to know about some sort of Seal, would you? Or maybe some kind of strange , o-or mystical place in the forest?” Hazel, for her part, did calm down at that. She leaned back from Rarity, a hoof to her chin, and that regal air emanated her once again as she stared off at some distant point and seemed to wrack her brain. When she turned back to Twilight, her ears twitching, her smile was polite – too polite, and a bit confused. Twilight braced herself for the disappointment. “Sorry, but my herd hasn’t reported about anything magical in these woods for years, and even when things were popping up, I’m afraid it was nothing more than a few enchanted mushrooms or crystals. Still, you’re free to ask any elders if they know of such a place.” Twilight sighed. Applejack stepped up from behind her and placed a warm hoof to her side. “Well, that’s a start, at least. And our last attempt at shelter didn’t exactly go too well. Y’all think we should go?” Twilight smiled at her, then glanced around at her circle of friends. Part of her worried that the elder deer probably wouldn’t know anything, and this detour would cost them precious time. Still, she did need more time and relative safety in order to study the Cosmic Library a bit more. Not to mention… Twilight brought her focus to Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity was doing well to act poised and proper in front of royalty, and she’d done well so far, but she was covered in ash and filth, and from here Twilight could see her forehooves shaking a bit from exertion. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, would normally have more stamina, but with the stress of the fire and the possibility of a dragon attack, and then everything with the giant bat… Also, now that she thought of it, Spike was only a baby, and had used up a lot of magic. They could all probably use the rest, if nothing else. Rarity, who had been watching her, seemed to see the decision unfolding on her face. With a prim smile, she turned to Hazel. “Ah, well we would surely appreciate a bit of food and rest. You’re positive we wouldn’t be an imposition?” Hazel started bouncing again. “Oh, of course not! You just saved us hours of work chasing that beast off; we have to return the favor.” Then she cleared her throat. She jutted out her chest, and turned to Gladiolus. “If you’ll just follow us, our village is just this way. We can see to getting you overnight housing and some traveling provisions.” Twilight sighed… but had to smile as Pinkie Pie bounced by giggling without another word. It was just a small detour, and they’d get to the Seal in no time, she told herself.