It was another strange dream that visited him late on the third night from when the column began its march to Canterlot. He’s had these dreams before but never so clear, so raw, or so real.
They were not like a regular dream; he was all too well aware of it being a dream and yet filled with thoughts and memories that made no sense or he knew could not have happened. When he woke, he could ever only remember the feel of it and a general idea of everything that had occurred and a sliver of the knowledge he had in them.
This dream, however, seemed more like many smaller dreams all connected to one another as they sped by his eyes and in moments just as could begin making sense of them.
The first thing he noticed was that the sky was all wrong. It was a swirling mass of red clouds that stretched out beyond view and something seemed to cause the objects around him lose definition and fade to black.
There was a woman sitting at her vanity table and giving herself a queer smile in the mirror. He was at her back and could not make out any of her features except that her gown was silk and see through. He tried approaching but he stopped short when he saw that her reflection was a blackened blur.
As he tried to understand why her reflection was hidden from him the darkness took shape and large bare trees rose from the ground until they touched the sky and he found himself in a dark forest.
He could not make out anything except for the stones that surrounded him, littering the ground before him haphazardly.
When he looked closer, the stones were not rough but smooth and he could make out some details like an eye and a single claw. The rest were too plain to make out what part of the statue they had been before it had shattered.
A laugh shot out from all around him and echoed across the darkness. The world began to spin and break apart; shattering into fragments and falling into the whirlpool of clouds in the sky.
He closed his eyes and screamed as he felt himself falling along into the dark and his breath cut from him when he felt his back crash on the ground that had not been there moments ago.
Wincing in pain, he opened his eyes to find himself an empty library. The shelves were bare and unreasonably tall and he was all alone. There was no dust, no cobwebs, and the lack of sound hurt his ears.
As he spun around, he noticed a lector and on it was an old leathery book with yellowing pages. He approached it slowly, as if he was afraid the world would break apart at any moment but his heart seized in panic when he saw the letters vanishing before his eyes.
He then lurched forward and grabbed the book and tried to read faster than the words disappeared but he could only read a few words before they vanished and he could not grasp the meaning of them.
However, one word was appearing over and over as he sped down the pages: harmony.
He froze then when the silence of his dream world break by the sound of a water droplet falling to the ground.
He turned to find the library gone and instead saw the silhouette of a centaur standing motionless and in front of him a human sprawled on the ground. His eyes darted back to the centaur as he tried to make out his features but before he could even think of calling out; he saw the glint of the blade in his hands and the drops of blood falling one by one unto the ground.
“Lore?” He said finally, unsure why that was the first name that came to him.
His brother turned to him, a wicked smile on his face and he opened his mouth to speak but instead of words coming out an old leathery hand shot out and Lore’s face became a black void that began sucking the very light out of the room.
The hand grabbed at the air and began pulling the very room into the black hole it was emerging from and as it flailed about he could do nothing but run in the opposite direction.
Soon, he found himself in a place he was familiar with.
He had dreamed of it before; the Whiteness.
As he turned back, he saw the hand turn left and right as if it were looking with its fingers to make sure it had grabbed every last bit of reality and left nothing but unblemished white in the universe.
Another dark hole opened just above the hand and he could make out the glimmer of an eye gazing at him from it.
The hand suddenly shot forward and its outstretched fingers became a claw like blur ready to rend the hide of his back.
He screamed again.
The air was cold was cold in the Everfree forest and the mist left him feeling damp and chilled to the bone. The ground was sucking at his hooves and made his cautious trek across the forest even slower and harder than he had imagined when he had set out before the sun had risen that morning.
Thinking of the dream, it made him uneasy. Not only was he confused and frightened by what he had seen but made him uneasy to realize how clearly he remembered it compared to all the others he’s had before. Every single detail was imprinted in his memory and he knew that none of those things could mean anything good.
He pushed the thoughts away as he tried to discern exactly where to go now that he was so deep and assumingly lost in the forest.
“The forest is a place that is beyond the laws of Equestria.” Lore had often told him. "The forest itself is a living thing and creates its own universe. Most monsters and certain creatures that live in Equestria have come out of the forest first and don’t ever think to apply logic or trust your sense of direction in there. The forest is alive and it knows you’re inside.”
He had always assumed Lore had been embellishing the tales a little to scare him and the other children so they wouldn’t even think of daring one another to go as close to the forest as they could to see who was the bravest which was a common game to play. He had never been very brave and he stayed far from the edge and let the others go up right to the trees and suffered their teasing in silence.
Now, he had without a second thought, run right into the woods themselves and found himself more lost than scared. However, now he knew that Lore had not been lying when he had told him of the forest. Every step he took made him feel more vulnerable and exposed than the last.
Occasionally, he looked up and could see blue between the high reaching branches instead of the silver sky of Equestria and even in the dark he could tell the grass and leaves were green instead of orange or red.
He could hear things in the dark that he could neither see nor guess at what they were. There were roars, rustling, steps, chirps, and all sorts of small noises and cracks that made him freeze and watch his surroundings with caution for any sign of movement.
“Monsters are born inside the Everfree forest and the deeper you go, the bigger they get.” Lore had said and his mind began to race with images of all manners of beasts from manticores to lions, dragons to ogres, and cockatrices to ursa.
Who knows what else lurks in here. He shuddered and made himself move quicker. How did I even get in here?
He knew how he got there, just this morning on a full gallop, but the why eluded him.
When he had woken from his nightmare, he had felt the pull to go into the Everfree forest and despite being clear of mind there was no churning of the guts, nervous butterflies, or even the voice in his head known as reason that should have been shouting at him to not take another step toward the forest.
He could not even understand why he had come. He felt as if he should keep going but toward what he had no idea. There was something in these woods that he had to find.
The statue, perhaps. He told himself as he reflected back on the dream.
The statue had been in a dark forest and he was in a dark forest right now. If he kept going far enough maybe he’d find it. And then what?
He sighed and jumped over a thick root just as he heard bark creak loudly behind him.
His head shot back to meet nothing but darkness and the silent trees. Something was out there and very close.
Too close.
As he turned back, he saw something move and his head snapped right back.
Nothing was there.
However, something bothered him about the darkness ahead of him. Just a moment ago, he could have sworn the trees had not been so close together and the branches weren’t quite so low.
He felt something bump against his flank and he reared with a shout.
Breath heaving, he saw nothing there but the tree he had been next to.
The wood is closing in on me. He thought to himself and before he could tell himself how silly the notion was he remembered Lore telling him to not trust his own knowledge of the world in here.
He bolted.
Hooves trampled the ground furiously as he madly went forward using his hands to shield his eyes from the assaulting branches. The forest was now filled with the sounds of moving branches, snapping bark, and rustling leaves and every sound only urged him to run faster and further.
He did not have a moment to spare to think and all his energy and focus was put to making sure he did not trip, run off a cliff, or break his legs. Just like a horse, a centaur could not easily recover from such an injury without a unicorn to mend the break magically and there were no unicorns in the Everfree forest who would come to his rescue; he knew that.
Light began to filter little by little in the distance and he realized he was almost out of the forest and with his breathing growing quick he felt a rush of hope propel him forward.
When he broke from the trees and into the open air, he slowed to a canter before coming to a full stop as his body suddenly began flooding him exhaustion from the sudden run and the air burned his lungs as he gulped air. He needed water.
As if by answered prayer, he found himself in a clearing with a circular lake not too far from where he stood and he walked over as quickly as he could with his ragged breathing.
He laid his body down and bent to allow his hands to cup the water and bring it up to his lips which he slurped as much and quickly as he could to get another hand full of water.
It took him the better part of a minute to regain his calm and sate his thirst but the fear induced run left him feeling weaker than usual. It was only then that he noticed the statue on the far side of the small lake and his heart seized when he saw it.
“It’s here...” He whispered to himself, almost in a daze as he made his way toward it in haste.
It was too far for him to make out any features but he could tell it wasn’t equine in any way. It was too long and straight and thin where it should have been stocky. He figured it to be a snake of some sort but as he got closer he began noticing a faint purple pulsing emanating from its center.
As he approached more and more, the pulsing quickened and grew until he could hardly see the statue at all.
He felt himself lifted off his hooves and flung back as a blinding white light burst from the purple pulsations and the hard ground scraped his sides painfully.
Lifting his head right back up to see what happened, he saw nothing but the shattered remains of the statue. Only a few feet away from his he saw the carved eye and claw just as he had in his dream.
The laugh from his dream erupted suddenly, catching him by surprise so that he gave a shout in terror as he whirled about to see its source but found nothing.
He knew it was watching him; he could feel its eyes all over his body.
He turned himself round and round as another laugh floated trying desperately to pinpoint where the creature had gone but he saw nothing.
Then he heard the rustle behind him.
He kicked as hard as he could with his hind legs.
“Woah!” A male voice rang out. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
He turned about, eyes wide with shock. “Lore?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear me calling you?” His brother repeated as he gazed around the clearing. “What were you thinking coming in here?”
“I’m sorry!” He cried out, feeling tears welling up under his eyes. “I didn’t hear you.” He grabbed his brother’s chest and sobbed against it, relief washing over him now that he was safe and found.
“Hey, don’t cry.” Lore reassured him. “I’m not mad; just glad you’re safe. And good thing I was still a foot away from you or you’d have really hurt me.” He chuckled as his little brother sobbed out more apologies.
“What were you doing in here anyways?” He pushed his brother back a little and wiped the tears off his cheeks with his thumb.
“I don’t know.” He said between sobs. “Did you hear me screaming?”
“Yes, that’s how I found you. Did something scare you?”
“There was a statue there.” He pointed and Lore looked over to see the broken carved stones littering the ground. “Just like in my dream and then it watched me and kept laughing.”
“You dreamed of this?” Lore bent to pick up a stone and examined it. “No telling what the statue was now. Never heard of a statue coming to life either.”
“Everything I dream comes true.” He said as he stopped his crying. “But this was different. It only came true because I came here, to the Everfree forest. If I hadn’t, I could have made my dream wrong.”
“This happened to you before?” Asked Lore and waited for his brother to nod. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know what the dreams were. I thought I was making things up in my head.” He looked about nervously. “I was scared.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Lore pointed to his brother’s flank. “you got something out of this, it seems.”
Craning his head to the side, he saw he had his mark. “My mark!”
“And you’re just fourteen, not too bad.” Lore ruffled his hair. “I was sixteen when I got mine and it’s not as half as interesting as yours.” He examined his little brother’s mark and found it to be like none he had ever seen before. It was a black head with a white eye in the middle instead of two on either side. His third eye. “And you finally get a name! Wonder what father will give you? Maybe Brave Dreamer or Fortune?”
“What am I, exactly?” He asked, and Lore stopped smiling.
“You’re a centaur, an earth one to be exact. You’re also my brother.” He put his hands around his brother. “That’s the important thing that you can never forget. You can see the future in your dreams, that’s strange on its own but not unheard of. I know a little but I think Wild Rose could tell you a lot more than me.”
“I’m scared.” He remembered seeing Lore murdering a human in his dream but he knew than to say anything.
“Don’t be.” Lore reassured him with a smile and a pat. “Let’s head back; sister has probably the entire column ready to charge the forest to find us.”
“Father is going to be mad.”
“No,” Lore started but thought for a moment. “Not in the way you’re thinking. Besides, at least you’ve got something to show for it and until the day you’ll die you’ll be known as one of the bravest centaurs in all of Equestria.”
“I spent most of the time running and panicking, actually.” He admitted.
“Well, that’s not how I’ll spin the story.” Lore winked and urged him along back to the edge of the forest. “Good thing you didn’t go far; I can almost see the outside from here.”
“What?” The young brother was confused. “I was here for hours.”
“You were lost, little brother, you probably went around in circles without noticing.”
“No, Lore, I ran straight and only straight.” He paused. “The trees. They were moving.”
Lore looked at him momentarily before speaking. “The Everfree Forest is something scary, isn’t it? Trust me, I know more about this place than I dare say.” He looked up at the blue sky blankly and sighed. “The way out is just ahead, follow me.”
“Okay.”
He followed Lore and in less than a minute he could see the light and silver sky of Equestria filtered through the edging trees of the forest. The forest had brought him back. It had taken him inside and then right back out.
So why can I still feel its eyes on me?