Twilight walked through the weed covered trail with bagged eyes and with a concentrated look in her eyes as her mind was set towards the cave ahead. The early morning sun pierced through the leaves and its light felt irritating to Twilight’s eyes. But she continued forward to her destination even as the light of the sun irritated her tired eyes.
The trail that led to the cave was quite a long trail. Far longer compared to the one that led to Zecora’s hut. Occasionally there were overgrown vines and weeds that were glazed over by ponies whose job was to trim these very plants. The Fall air seemed to calm her down as she breathed in its coolness while she continued to trot forward. The Fall leaves in the trees seemed so elegant in the sun’s rays, but yet, her mind still had her focused on the cave even if the scenery distracted her.
She continued to walk along the hilly and bumpy path until she could make out the cave in the distance. The cave itself was a big dark mouth with just as big of a waterfall that had a cascading volume to the sound of its rushing water that seemed to smoothly echo throughout the forest. On top of the waterfall was a plateau that was connected to the mountains in the distance. Geographically the river ran down the mountain and through the perfectly flat plateau to the waterfall, then down to Ponyville, and the rest of Equestria.
Of course, its cave and waterfall’s immense size wasn’t the only thing that attracted its visitors. As mentioned by Rarity before Twilight arrived here, there were cave paintings that were inside the cave that dated back to before in the time when the ponies of Equestria were divided into six tribes. The discovery of these paintings seemed to give a glimpse into that prehistory and resolve the mythical nature of the nation’s founding. The cave by itself was massive, a labyrinth of cave systems unexplored and of which the certainty of the creatures who inhabited the cave were just as unknown. Probably also being another factor as to why it wasn’t explored.
Twilight climbed up the limestone stairs and passed the rusty iron bars that protected visitors from the cliff’s edge and cast a light and made her horn glow as she entered the mouth of the cave. The sound of the waterfall seemed to echo off the cave’s walls like it was the sound of white noise or static on a t.v. making Twilight’s perked-up ears shiver a bit as the sound uncomfortably bounced against her eardrums. She walked down the ledge of the stairs and looked past the gaping mass of the cave walls that seemed eroded and spongelike. She walked down the tunnel and entered a smaller tunnel that was very cramped and eventually led to said paintings on the walls.
The paintings in question seemed to depict a 2D outline of a battle. The ponies were throwing spears at the other and prancing around one another with those same crudely drawn black arrows. As Twilight went further down she saw some of the art pieces that were most famous. A massive 2D painting of what the mythical wendigos of old looked like, which made her believe they did not look anything like the hearts war play predicted. Even though they were certainly deer-like and seemed to be bipedal in nature with the art depicted of having big bushy fur, it was something that Twilight has been ever so intrigued by when photos were first taken of it. It made her imagine wonder about what they actually looked like if she were to ever see one.
She continued walking and eventually, she came to a section of the cave where there was a massive hole. This hole was dark and looked endless, but what took her interest the most was there seemed to be a trail of fresh hoofmarks that seemed to be coming up from the hole. Like a pony had just exited it with something on their hooves. She didn’t have time to look at it or figure out a way to get down, so she continued moving right along.
Then as she entered the famous stalactite section of the cave she felt her horn and ears start to ring in pain. The lights that lit up the stalactite section started to strobe rapidly. As her hooves dashed along the limestone, she could make out the tall figure amongst the flickering darkness. The mare’s dark tendrils seamlessly stretched out and slithered around the stalactites and stalagmites like dark snakes. In her desperate mind, as she continued to dash throughout the cave as the cave was lit up to pitch black in a matter of seconds, she found a small little cracked crevice that was gated off from her. With all of her effort, she jumped over the iron fence and crawled into the hole. It was cramped but she could see that it led somewhere. She urgently crawled through the cramped stone tunnel while her mane brushed against the limestone ceiling that nearly touched her horn.
She looked back with her flickering horn and her head screaming in pain and saw that somehow the Tallmare had wiggled itself behind her into the cave and seemed to move through the cave with ease, like its body was boneless. She could see its tentacles reaching out to her from far behind. She scampered through the tunnel quicker as her breathing grew heavier and the air pressure made it harder for her to breathe. She knew she had to find a way out but didn’t want to cower out of this cave. She didn’t want to die alone and was stuck in some cramped tunnel. So she continued, even if the amount of air she breathed in was shorter as the tunnel walls soon were cramped enough to brush against her horn causing more pain to her already aching head. She then saw a fork in the tunnel that seemed to lead to another part of the cave so she pushed through, breathing heavily and panting as she pushed herself up the slope and into another section and through the smaller tunnel. She landed on her stomach as she exited the tunnel breathing heavily as she could feel much more oxygen within this part.
The pain was gone and her horn was glowing normally again. As soon as she recovered her breath she picked herself back up and put more energy into her light. The dim purple glow showed that this section seemed to have no signs of prior pony interaction. There was no cave lighting, there were no little iron bars, and no clear trail. Instead, there was only the cave wall all around and one big lake in the middle that was enormous in its size. She realized she had reached an unexplored part but this wasn’t one she had in mind to go to, or in this case, end up in.