The hissing of the ember filled the air of the forrest, echoing inside the ears of all life in the vicinity. The thoughts of each pony was drowned out by its consistant crackling. The cool morning air turned arid as the flare's warming glow covered her surrounding in a wave of lavender warmth and painted the green scenery in a purple twilight glow. With each expected flicker of the flame, a menagerie of sparkles could be seen shimmering within the heart of the fire. Beads of sweat dripped down from each pony's forehead. The sweltering heat being radiated made the forest feel like the inside of a furnace. Despite it actually being quite hot, the feeling wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest; in fact, it was actually therapeutic. They felt relaxed, it was as if the heat from the fire was soothed them of their aches and pains.
A quick question was brought up to Sonnet's attention. Could this even be classified as fire? It had a magical aura to it, something she had never felt before. Maybe it was something from the Dragon School of Vinheim, the college of gifted unicorns; the school where all unicorns proven to be precocious in magic are taken there to delve in the art of sorceries. Most unicorns that lived in the area were taken away to go live in Vinheim, on the far side from where Catarina is located on the map. Sonnet, along with most of the Earth Ponies from Catarina never actually witnessed a true display of magic because of this inconvenience. Most Earth ponies haven't even seen an actual unicorn in their lifetime. To be able to see one with your own eyes was a miracle in itself; even the neighboring Izalithians seldom left the caves they bound themselves to. Although living in complete isolation, they have shown the most generosity out of all the neighboring cities with their offer of three years worth of rations up for trade. Loaves of wheat bread line the outer-edges of the bread bags they carried in wooden carts. Wheat grains, piled upwards in mounds, filled up any empty spaces residing within the center of the sack. Bushels of broccoli and pounds of potatoes fill their white bags to the brim. Colors ranging in variety of purple grapes, cherry-red tomatoes, and orange carrots mixed together in abstract designs. The aromas mixture of fruits and vegetables would seep through the cloth and stew within the nostrils of the sleeping campers. On top of all the food, they even offered to give what little medicine they could scrape up. It wasn't that much, but a few bandages and antibiotics are enough of a safety-deposit to carry the caravan into town. What the ponies of Izalith did for them was a saving grace.
As the quintet of ponies continued to push onwards into the thick jungle of trees, Sonnet caught a quick glimpse of something popping into her peripheral. She darted her head left, the faint image of a pony darted from tree to tree. From afar, she could only make what she believed to be a horn, and the color of her coat. The coat was purple, matching that of the forest lilacs. With each trotting step, the pony was moving closer and closer to the group's direction, yet it still did not make an attempt to contact them. From her distance now, Sonnet could make out the slightly under-weight pony's frame. It's chest slightly bared its ribs and starved physique. The pony's bounds were accompanied by facial ticks, the cringes of its discomfort.
Sonnet stared off in confusion. Why would anypony be out here, alone in this neck of the woods? "Glasseye? Please tell me I'm not the only pony seeing this." Somepony else had to have been seeing this too, she thought.
Glasseye turned his head back and gave her a peculiar look. "What are you talking about? I can barely see the path in front of me. Honestly, if it wasn't for Banter's loud armor clanging together, we probably would have lost our way by now"
"How can you not see it? Look, out to the left! There's another pony, one not from our group, running away from the flame."
"Uh... Sonnet, are you ok?" Glasseye said, tilting his head sideways in bewilderment.
"Ugh" Sonnet just sighed. "Don't worry about it, it isn't important anymore." She didn't feel like trying to point it out to him.
Sonnet turned her head back to the left, squinting her eyes to try and focus in on the fleeing figure. A dim light was now glimmering in front of the pony's forehead, reassuring her that she wasn't going crazy. She could now tell for sure the pony was a unicorn with this light display. She could see its head now hung low, teeth gritting together as its muscles strained to keep it from collapsing to the ground. The pony turned its head in the direction of the group, revealing the sullen face of a distraught mare. The whites of her eyes were filled with branching lines of red. The orb of light, what Sonnet figured to be magic, expanded in size and disconnected from the horn it was anchored to. It floated upwards, into the canopy cover, and disappeared. Looking back at the pony, a lonely, crystalline tear formed at the edge of the unicorns eyes. It rolled gently down her cheeks, dropping off her face at the point of her chin. Before it could hit the ground, the pony faded away, vanishing from existence.
Sonnet halted all movement of her legs, her hooves digging into the ground as she slid to a stop. She couldn't believe what she just witnessed. Should she tell somepony of what she just saw? She was highly considering to speak up to either Pastel or Ironhoof, they probably wouldn't believe though, just like Glasseye. She just needed to keep moving, maybe she'll find more answers further on down the road. Sonnet shook her head of all of her thoughts and pushed on ahead to catch up with the rest of the group.
Her little deviation from the trip caused her to fall far behind the lead pony. Banter, with his bulky iron armor somehow managed to be at the head of the group, cutting them a path straight through the leaves for them. She was a bit of a ways behind him, barely catching up to Ironhoof. For his age, ironhoof was in fantastic shape. She didn't know his exact age, it was rude to ask that of an elder, but she figured he was around fifty years of age. He was definitely nowhere close to being as agile as Pastel or as quick as Banter. She could tell he was more exhausted than any of the other three she was just with. Even with this in mind, he could still run a fair distance when needed to.
Ironhoof cleared his throat of the build-up of thick slime collecting in the back of his dry mouth. "Sonnet, I need you to be helping me watch for anything suspicious on the way there. I don't like the idea of us charging into the unknown and I need to know if things are going to get worse." Ironhoof spoke of his disapproval through bated breathes. Even with her lack of perceiving his expression, Sonnet could tell Banter's childish side had gotten the best of him. When he wanted to be, Banter could be a serious and straight-forward pony; this was not one of those times.
"What, you don't trust Banter with our safety? He may be a foal-at-heart, but he knows better than to lead us into trouble." Sonnet figured that curiosity had gotten the best of Banter and he wasn't going to stop until they found the got to the root of things.
"I have complete trust in our friend, I just think it naive of everypony to be chasing after the unknown. We need to be more careful of what we do this close to the city borders."
Sonnet thought about what Ironhoof just told her, about their conversation. She wanted to mention what she had just seen, she wanted to tell him of the mysterious unicorn. He trusts her to keep an eye out and tell them if she noticed anything unusual. She decided to hold her peace instead. Whatever it was had just vanished, not posing any sort of threat to them now. She continued to trot along, following the trail made just for them, hoping the decision she just made was the right one.
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"Over this way! This place is right below the flame." Banter called out to the rest of his team. He stopped himself at a hedge of bushes. These were the only things standing between them, and the truth. Sonnet watched as he slowly reached his hoof forward, ready to peel back the thick leaves blocking their path.
"Wait!" A bellowing voice caught the group off guard, causing them to jump back from fright; the abruptness of Ironhoof's shout was enough to grab the attention of everypony there.
"Sheesh Ironhoof, what crawled up your skirt?! All we're doing is checking out what this bustle is all about."
Ironhoof strolled up exhausted, stopping to catch his breath from the run. "Banter..." Ironhoof clamped his teeth down onto a hanging branch and locked in his jaw. He dug his hooves a nice little pocket in the dirt a prepared himself. He jerked the branch as hard as he could and with a loud crack, the branch snapped free from its jointed position and landed between the quintet of ponies. A thick cloud of dust spat up into the air and collected into a suffocating smog. Everyone coughed and wheezed in reaction to a few stray specks of dirt sneaking their way into the group's lungs.
"...Look." The air finally cleared out and they were all able to see and speak again. Sonnet's pried her watering eyes, all bloodshot and irritated open. Her mouth hung open, aghast at the sight before her. The thick branch lying on the ground was encrusted in a thin layer of dried up crimson. Everypony had been caught off guard by the bloody omen lying before them.
"Wha... what could have done this?" Glasseye rubbed his left eye, his good eye, in disbelief. "Have I gone mad? Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this."
"Maybe we've all gone nuts, I'd feel a lot better if that was the case." An uneasy grin, tinged with discomfort, crept onto Banter's face. "Unfortunately, I think we might have a frog problem on our hands." The fear of being cursed plugged up the holes left by the emptiness of their silence. Terror swept over the group, filling in the thoughts of everypony there.