//------------------------------// // Guilt and Vengeance // Story: Ghosts of Whitetail Wood // by Biochi //------------------------------// "Dear Celestia," Rarity swore at the sight of Twilight's condition. Applejack stared at Twilight, her orange face paling as she took in the blood, snot, and tears. "Oh, Sugarcube, I'm so sorry. I won't let Her hurt you ever again." Applejack reached out a forelimb to comfort her friend but was shocked when Twilight shied away from her. Twilight growled, "No, AJ. You did this." "What?!? I did? How in tarna-" Applejack was cut off by a swift kick to her side, delivered by a white and perfectly polished hoof. "What our dear Applejack meant to say was, 'We know we've been in the wrong and have been acting terribly.' Also, she wants to say 'that we are deeply sorry and beg your forgiveness'." "You do?" Twilight asked as her temper came back under fuller control. "We do?" Applejack asked her white friend. "We do." Rarity confirmed with ice in her voice. All eyes were on Applejack, waiting. "I...we do," she said and deflated a bit. Twilight regarded her two, poorly-behaved friends. "I'm not sure I can forgive you for this, AJ. You accused Luna of foal-napping and then threw a pitchfork at her. If any guardponies had seen that you'd be on your way to prison right now." "I wouldn'tve thrown a pitchfork at just anyone, Twi. It was Luna. The worst it coulda done is annoy her a bit." Applejack at least had the decency to look chagrined. "What about me, AJ. You could have hit me with that thing." "M' aim's pretty good." the orange mare muttered. "Really?" Twilight's anger was building again. "You want to go with the whole, 'I'm pretty good at throwing sharp objects at monarchs so you weren't in any real danger defense'? "Ok, ok, I was angry and scared and I jumped to conclusions and I was stupid and wrong!" Applejack's own voice rose in response to Twilight's tone. "Applebloom's gone missing and I had thought that Luna had took her away for 'training'." Twilight could hear the extra set of quotes. "What do you mean by 'training'?" she demanded. "Twilight, you of all ponies should understand. Everyone's worried that AB's got a dangerous talent. It wouldn't be the first time one of the princesses swooped in and took a foal away from their family to keep everyone safe from them. I can't even imagine how your family dealt with it." Twilight realized what Applejack was implying about her own history to and inhaled deeply as she was surprised by the hurt. She opened her mouth, about to test if it was possible to flay the skin off an earth-pony by the power of voice and vitriol alone. "Aaand now we need to change the subject!" Rarity interrupted, wedging between her two friends before they came to blows. "Twilight, Sweetie Belle is gone too. We're worried that they ran away together." Twilight licked her lips as she restrained her impending tirade so as to give Rarity a chance to elaborate. "Scootaloo's not missing, so its just the two of them and it's my fault. Please Twilight, forget what Applejack just said and help us find them. Help us find two lost and scared foals," Rarity continued without pausing long enough for Twilight to interject until she was finished laying out her request. Twilight exhaled in a whooshing sigh. "We aren't done with this Applejack, not by a long-shot." She raised her head and locked eyes with the green ones before her. "Finding the girls is more important than this, where do you think they went?" "Canterlot." Rarity answered. At the same time Applejack replied, "Everfree Forest." The two looked at each other and tried again. "Whitetail Wood," said Rarity. "Ghastly Gorge," Applejack said simultaneously. Twilight facehoofed, "Ok, I'll put that down as 'you don't know'. Come in, I'll see what I can do to track them down." The three mares entered the library tree underneath the light of the noonday sun. ------------------------------------------------------------ Dawn was just beginning to break over the Canterlot mountains to the east as the two fillies pushed their way through the last of the tall grass. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sweetie Belle asked Apple Bloom as they neared the boundary to the forest. "Sure it is! You come along with me and we can help the ghost deer together. That way everyone can see that my talent is a good thing and not any danger to my friends and family." "...Ok, but what if it is dangerous?" Apple Bloom looked back at the unicorn, "The ghost I met here was nice. He helped me find my way home when I was lost." It wasn't anything like the last time." "Yeah, that Blank thing sounded kind of bad." Her green eyes were wide as she took in the look of the gloomy forest. "Oh yeah, it was terrible. I almost died. Actually it would've been a lot worse than dying." Apple Bloom replied without any trace of fear in her voice. "Yeah, that totally makes me feel better about this," Sweetie planted her hooves. "Oh come on!" Apple Bloom looked over her shoulder to her friend. "I promise, it won't be anything like that." "You're sure?" Sweetie asked, obviously worried. "I haven't been wrong yet," Apple Bloom replied, voice dripping with bravado. "Isn't this the first time? "...You comin' or not?" Sweetie looked guilty, she felt that she shouldn't doubt her friend. Especially since all the adults were being dumb about Apple Bloom. This was their chance to prove them wrong and keep their friendship (and the CMC) alive. She clenched her lips and summoned a fitful and sputtering green light from the tip of her horn. Dawn was spilling over the fields and mountains but, underneath the canopy of leaves, the forest was still dark. "Ok, let's go." Apple Bloom smiled and nodded. She took the lead, using the faint light from Sweetie's horn to pick her way around the otherwise hidden logs, brambles, and burrow holes. She didn't know where to go, not exactly, but made sure to project an air of confidence - for Sweetie's sake she told herself. She was looking as had as she could, eyes darting to any movement or flicker of light as she led them deeper into the forest but she saw nothing supernatural. Hours passed as the two fillies pushed deeper into the forest. Eventually, to Sweetie's great relief, the sun gained enough height in the sky so that its light could filter down through the thick leaves. They were able to see without her horn-light and he white unicorn stumbled as she released the concentration that had kept the green spark going. "Sweetie?!? Are you ok?" Apple Bloom asked, alarmed by her friend's sudden trouble walking. "Yep but-" she shook her head, causing her sweat-logged curls to shift messily. "But, I'm tired from making that light while walking. I've never done that for so long before." "Do you need to rest? the earth pony asked. Apple Bloom was barely winded but she was an earth pony and knew that Sweetie Belle had a hard time keeping up with her and Scootaloo during their more physically strenuous adventures. "Please, could we?" Sweetie circled around and found a relatively bare patch of dirt underneath an oak tree. She didn't sit as so much collapse onto the patch, panting. Apple Bloom trotted up besides her exhausted friend and sat leaning against her flank so that her friend could know she was there without having to open her eyes. It wasn't long until Apple Bloom heard Sweetie's breaths even out and deepen as the unicorn fell asleep. Now that the sun had fully risen, the uncharacteristic heat that had been plaguing Ponyville this last week began to build once again. As the mercury rose so did the volume of the cicadas as they resumed their ascent up the rough bark of the trees. Apple Bloom found herself simply staring at the insects as each struggled against impossible odds to seize the finest spot from which to sing. The parallel with her sleeping friend was obvious to the earth pony; not for the first time did she wonder about Sweetie's singing ability. If singing was her friend's talent; she, like these bugs, would need to find a taller perch to sing from. Ponyville was nice but you couldn't launch a music career from here. If Sweetie's talent was for music, she would be leaving Apple Bloom behind. The earth pony suddenly felt like she was falling as she realized that her musings were no longer accurate. Her imagined farewells had assumed that she had developed some talent having to do with apples and that she'd spend her adult life working at Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack's words came floating back to haunt her, that future was gone. It was like the time the CMC had tried base-jumping with Pinkie; her stomach was trying to escape via her esophagus as her rock-solid destiny was left far behind. She was plummeting towards a future she could no longer imagine. She'd be leaving the farm. She'd likely be leaving Ponyville. Her breathing sped up from equal measures excitement and fear. It was then she noticed the white stag again. He was peeking out from behind one of the great oaks that dominated this deep portion of the wood. Now that she was looking for it, she could tell he was translucent as well as luminous. The expression on his alien face was inscrutable as he regarded her. "Um, Hi," Applebloom nervously greeted the ghost. His head tilted, ever so slightly, to one side. "Um, I came back to say 'thank you,' for helping me find my way home yesterday. There was a nearly imperceptible nod. "I, ah, was wonderin' if there was anything I could do for you in return." The antlered head tilted the other direction. "Um, since I can see you an' all, maybe I could help you 're-solve your lingering issues'," she said, plagiarizing words Twilight had previously used. "Or maybe there's a message you want me to carry somewhere?" The stag regarded her blankly for an uncomfortable amount of time. Apple Bloom began to wonder if Twilight and her brother were wrong about the utility of her talent. Suddenly the stag nodded and sprang off, deeper into the woods. He stopped after a few bounding leaps to make sure she was following. Apple Bloom scrambled to her hooves and the stag continued on. The yellow filly turned to her sleeping friend and whispered, "Sweetie, Sweetie, wake up!" "Huh, what?" the unicorn flailed groggily. "Shhhhh! The ghost deer is back, he's wanting us to follow. Be quiet, I don't want to scare him." "Oh! Cool!" Sweetie Bell sprang up to her hooves and followed as quietly as she could. After a few minutes of following her friend Sweetie asked, "Apple Bloom? Are you sure we're going the right way?" "Of course we are, we're just following that there stag." Apple Bloom replied in a whisper. "Um, Apple Bloom. Its not that I don't believe you but I don't see anything here but trees." "Wow, that's really weird." the earth pony replied and kept on following the deer only she should see. Sweetie Belle whimpered and followed her friend, unwilling to abandon Apple Bloom but also very aware of the fact that she was unable to find her way out of the woods on her own. After an exhausting chase through the dense woods, the spirit stopped after entering a clearing. Apple Bloom's eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness and then studied the gap in which the stag stood. A shallow hill fell from the left to her right, ending at a small but fast-flowing stream. The hill seemed to be missing a portion, as it looked like the part facing the river had been somehow cut, exposing stacked, broken, sheets of reddish rock. The ground directly in front of the face was littered with stones of varying sizes and shapes. As Apple Bloom stepped into the clearing she began to notice that the rocks looked chipped and flaked, as if deliberately shaped. Looking down-slope she saw three rock rings, mostly overgrown with moss and weeds. They were each about three meters across and the remaining stones stood hock high to her, each had an opening facing a small pile of fire-blackened stones that sat in the center. Apple Bloom's vision swam as more pale figures joined that of the stag. A second male moved alongside the white form, this one with a much smaller rack of antlers. Three more deer drifted up to the two stags, they had no antlers and were a head shorter than the two males. "Does" Apple Bloom reminded herself of the terminology Twilight had conveyed to her yesterday. The last to emerge was the dim and wavering form of a fawn, his antlers no more than fuzz-covered nubs on his head. She could see the settlement as it once stood as the deer remembered their home for her. Wooden poles were driven into the ground inside the stone rings and thick boughs of pine served each tiny house as thatching. The does spent time at different chores. One was down by the stream manipulating something invisible. Another was besides the remembered fire, tending to some cooking the filly couldn't see. The last doe romped in the clearing, surrounded by wisps that felt like the memory of fawns to her. Only one of those forms frolicking with her provided his own substance and light, all of the others were visible only in the reflected light of the ghost-doe's memory. This idyllic scene was interrupted by the appearance of several ponies from the far end of the river. Their shapes were hard to see clearly as they too were not ghosts themselves but images from the memories of the dead. What she could see gave her the impression of long, straight horns jutting from their foreheads and ancient armor covering their withers and flanks. The unicorns reared and charged the deer. The stag she knew locked antlers to horn with the leader as the younger stag stood pack and flung spears at the invaders. The projectiles hit home but the stone tips shattered against the metal plate these ponies wore, stymieing the stags attempt to defend his home. Once the unicorns dismissed the younger male as a non-threat they surrounded the great stag and impaled him upon their horns. He kicked and spun but could not defend himself from all the others as he was still locked, skull to skull, with their captain. The stag fell, and as he lay dying he helplessly watched as the unicorns ran down the younger stag, the does, and the fawns. No one survived. Apple Bloom's mind was blank. 'Blood and horror' did not begin to describe the slaughter she had witnessed. Tears ran freely down her slack cheeks and their saltiness creeped into the edges of her gaping mouth. Her knees shook, her skin twitched, and the strong scent of urine told her that she had lost control of her bladder at some point during the vision. "-Bloom!" Sweetie Belle's full-throated shout brought Apple Bloom back to some measure of consciousness. "Sweetie?" The yellow filly croaked. "Thank Celestia! I thought I was going to have to carry you back!" At the sound of the goddess' name the specters raised their heads and seemed to finally notice Sweetie Belle. The ghost-deer still carried their death-wounds and seemed to be struggling to rise from the ground. Apple Bloom could feel the intensity of their combined gaze fall on Sweetie's horn. "No," Apple Bloom begged. "She's not one of them that hurt you." Sweetie continued, oblivious. "You just stopped once you got into the clearing. First you were smiling but then you got scared; really, really scared." The unicorn's gaze dipped for just a moment to he puddle underneath Apple Bloom, politely not detailing the physical signs of the filly's terror. Apple Bloom could see the earth underneath the ghosts begin to buckle and boil. "Each spirit was laying where they had died," her brain supplied trying to make sense of what she was seeing. As a terrible theory began to take shape she interrupted Sweetie's monologue. "Sweetie, do you see something going on with the dirt over there?" She gestured to the nearest ghost, struggling against some invisible pull. "Um, yeah. It looks like something is digging its...way...out." Sweetie's eyes grew to the size of platters as her pupils contracted down to specks. Humus-stained bones broke the surface as a leg dragged the rest of the animated skeleton free from its grave. To Apple Bloom, the two forms seemed super-imposed. A translucent memory of self enveloped each set of remains. They did not move with the grace their purely spectral forms possessed, instead they lurched and crawled towards her and Sweetie. She corrected herself as realization took hold, they were after Sweetie. They were after revenge. "I should never have brought you here," she said to her friend. "I thought you said you couldn't do zombies," Sweetie said with rising alarm. "I'm not doing this," was Apple Bloom's simple yet ominous reply. "Ok, in that case, what are we going to do?" the unicorn asked with a panicked voice. "Run!"