//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Holes 
// by Nestromo 
//------------------------------//

   He didn't sleep well that night, though that wasn't out of the ordinary as of late. Sleeping the entire night through had become a rare treat, and he never really expected it to happen. After tossing and turning in bed for what felt like hours, Quillyn finally dragged himself out  and stumbled to the bathroom. A quick shower and a trimming of the whiskers that were already darkening his chin and lip, all the standard hygiene regimen, his brushes and soaps packed away with the rest of his belongings afterwards. Finally, the most important thing for his sojourn came to mind.
Preparing his food for the next few days took the longest out of his preparations. He kept his tail cropped short along with most of his mane, a shock of the reddish brown hair on top of his head remaining messy no matter what he tried to do with it, so hair care was not exactly part of his priorities. Thus, his focus was put towards making palatable, survivable meals that he wouldn't mind having to deal with on the road. Tending towards fruits spritzed with lemon juice to keep them fresh, he also brought along a few hard breads and some bags of trail mix that would do him well as snacks along the way.
After all of that, the sun had eventually crested the horizon, splashing color across the world after the moonless night before. Admittedly, he enjoyed the night as much as the day, and with his spotty sleep schedule, he saw much of both. These thoughts were fleeting in the face of what he prepared for. Quillyn had always enjoyed the walks he took, but this one felt... different, somehow. It was linked with his work, but also with something far deeper. Something that pulled at him with a sort of urgency that he could not place. Chasing ghosts and specters given flesh, perhaps.
Quillyn shrugged into the backpack after pulling on his old fatigues. The lush green-leaf pattern of the militia camouflage was as vibrant as before, but the clothes themselves hung a bit more loosely upon him than he remembered. He had taken the old ID card off of the front pocket upon his chest just below his neck, stuffing it into one of the other pockets, along with any other insignia that was on it. Finally, he pushed on his cap, readjusting his glasses with a last glance in the mirror. It was almost as he remembered, though the looseness of his clothes was slightly disconcerting, reminding him of the years that had passed since he wore the uniform before.
With one last check of the house, the writer lets out a breath, turning towards the door, and opening it with no further drama. Just beyond the landing, however, was a sight that he didn't quite expect. Rainbow Dash, whom he really only knew as a slight acquaintance, stood just beyond, hoof raised to knock on his door. "Whoa! That's some crazy timing QP," she blustered, nearly losing her balance if not for a quick thrust of her wings. 
Quillyn hadn't expected it either, having to swallow his heart, "Ah, Rainbow Dash... what brings you here?" 
The athlete looked him over and whistled appreciatively, "Nice duds, dude! Looking pretty cool if you ask me. Uh, well, I'd heard from Applejack that you might be taking a little trip to the Everfree Forest."
It figures that Applejack might say something to her friends, especially after the way he rushed off the night before. "Yes, I'm heading there now," he replied, casting one more glance over his house before grabbing up the keys from the table, speaking around them, "Anything wrong with that?" 
Rainbow Dash quirked a brow and seemed to think for a moment before replying, "... no, not really... just kind of an odd thing to do, huh? Just... take off work and head off into there? There's stuff in there that's not really... very nice, you know." 
Flipping the keys into his front pocket, Quillyn chuckled, "I know, Dash. Is that all that you came by to tell me?"
At that, the pegasus squirmed and shuffled, glancing around the stoop. It was very early morning, and there was no one else outside but them. "Well... there was something else," she said, glancing around again quite nervously, "... it's about what you're looking for. This is stuff that's really bad. Stuff that even we had a lot of problems with, and... well, you're..." 
At that, Quillyn narrowed his eyes, "I'm what, exactly?" 
Realizing her poor choice of wording, Rainbow Dash seemed to shrink a bit, "You're... you're not really all that strong. We're just kind of worried about you."
Quillyn wasn't quite sure just how to react to this. A foul mixture of anger and injured pride pushed its way to the fore of the morass. "I'm older than all of you by more than a couple of years, Rainbow Dash," he replied, voice near growling, "I've been trained to handle situations where I'm alone. This isn't the first time I've gone out on my own. Far from it. So don't worry about me." 
The pegasus blinked, blanching, "QP, that's not what I mean, I-" 
The lanky stallion pulls the door closed more than a bit hard, the sound of the slam echoing through the neighborhood, "I can handle myself. I... appreciate your concern, though I don't understand why I'm important all of a sudden. I assure you, I'll be alright."
Rainbow Dash frowned and opened her mouth to say something in terse reply, but seemed to think better of it, giving him a nod. "... okay. We'll be here if you need us, QP. Just let us know," she replied after a moment of Quillyn looking at her hard. 
With a sigh, he looked down to her hooves before looking back up to her eyes, forcing a slight smile, "... thank you, Rainbow Dash. I just have some things to think about. I'll tell you how everything goes when I get back." With that, he moved around her, clopping down onto the cobbled street and turning towards the edge of town, near the closest cleared entrance to the forest. He could feel the eyes of the pegasus upon his back, but he never turned to look again.
Afterwards, he could feel his anger beginning to cool in his throat. There was little that tickled his temper, but being told that he was not capable of doing something was one of the triggers. She meant well, he knew; It still didn't help the matter. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his gullet, forcing his wounded pride down as he made his way a bit more quickly than normal through the town towards the forest's edge. A few others went on their way, occasionally greeting him, but his garb almost always got looks. It wasn't often that militia members were present in full view for the public, and he could understand their wariness, given the recent situation. He supposed it was fitting that he was going to be investigating that same issue.
Before long, the weight of the pack had begun to chafe his back through his fatigues, but Quillyn soldiered on. Perhaps his expression had slipped to something between pain and determination, as the greetings had begun to wane, even as traffic began to thicken. The market stalls were still closed from the night before, an owner here and there preparing for the day's business. It seemed like just another day in Ponyville to everyone else but him. Something about all of this carried a sort of dire air about it all. He knew, somehow, that he was going to be able to find something where others had failed. A sort of providence that reigned supreme over every other emotion.
Of course, all of that could just be in his head, the feeling of having some time off of work and embarking on some sort of 'grand' journey to find the boogeymen of almost everypony's childhood. But first, he'd have to actually make it inside of the Everfree Forest and elude detection by most everything in there. He may not be afraid of most of the creatures that dwell inside that wild place, but he did not exactly want to go traipsing about with abandon, either. It was a dangerous, wild place, that should always be treated with respect and caution. Some of his best inspiration for writing had come from that wood.
After leaving Ponyville behind, it was just a short jaunt through some light woods to the nearest easy access, which took him right by Fluttershy's small farm. For a shy pony that disliked the Everfree Forest and its proximity, she lived right on the cusp of it. Quillyn always found that rather odd, but he wasn't going to say anything about it to her. As it was, the pegasus was outside tending to her garden and the chickens. He stopped and waved politely before moving on, Fluttershy smiling softly and looking away. Though, right as he was about to slip into the woods, she bolted over to him with speed he'd rarely seen from her.
"Quillyn, where are you going?" She asked urgently, or as urgently as she could with her breathy voice. 
He quirks a brow and looked at her over his glasses and under the brim of his cap, something of a balancing act, "I'm going into the forest." 
"Oh... oh my, do you really have to go in there?" she replied, shuffling there in front of him. These ponies are acting strange as of late.
"Yes. I do," Quillyn leveled her with a stare for a few moments before giving her a smile, "I'll be okay. I don't suppose you saw those changelings go in here? Maybe... find some evidence of their presence?"
"Um... well, I... I... not... exactly, no... you see... um..." The pegasus blinks, choking and stumbling over her words. He knew he'd hit upon something. 
"What do you mean, not exactly?" He prodded, his quirked brow rising a bit higher, but the effect was lost behind the brim of his cap. She became flustered and emitted some sort of squeaking sound before finding herself again. 
"I... found some prints. They weren't... really... pony prints, not normal ones... they were around my farm, and went... went in there," she murmured, vaguely motioning with her hoof towards the forest. Prints were excellent proof, and left a physical trail for him to follow. 
"What do you mean, not normal?" he returned, leaning in and leveling a gaze at her.
Fluttershy swallowed hard and seemed to shrink on the spot, her quiet voice becoming barely a whisper, "They had... holes... in them... like those nasty changelings... eep!" She suddenly spooked and grimaced, looking around rapidly as if there was someone else there. 
Quillyn followed her glancings, puffing up his chest, "I'll not let them hurt you. They won't hurt anyone. They're on the run, right? That's the last thing on their mind. So... where are these tracks?" Hesitating, the pegasus seemed to regret even mentioning the prints, but she dutifully led him over to where they started, near the chicken coop. He smiled to her again, "Thank you, Fluttershy. Everything will be alright. After all, I probably won't find a thing... but it never hurts to check."
The shy pony didn't seem placated, but nodded, seeming to shake in her tracks. Then again, she always seemed nervous about something or other, so this didn't seem particularly out of place on it's own. However, with the way everypony else seemed to be acting about the whole thing, Quillyn had reason to be suspicious, though he doesn't press the issue. The prints were odd; clean cut-outs were made in some of the hoof marks. He couldn't explain it, especially when the particular sets were uniform, the same hoof apparently making the same mark, as if the hoof was not completely whole.
Odd marks aside, there were at least twelve sets of them, all leading into the same place. The pace was leisurely, judging from the spacing, though they did not linger in the area for long. Quillyn took in a breath and let it out through his nose, following the prints into the forest as Fluttershy watched. She stood on the spot for a long while after he disappeared into the foliage, and then scampered off, presumably to call her friends to tell them what had happened. He didn't care at that point; he was in the forest already, and there was nothing they could do to stop him.
The scent of freshly turned dirt and decomposing vegetation was thick in the air, dust and spores illuminated in the shafts of light that penetrated the canopy of the forest. Sounds of small animals and perhaps a couple larger ones echoed off of the trees, sounding muted and diffracted. Despite the sun climbing high into the morning sky, little light was available, and it took Quillyn's eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. It was invigorating; it felt like an entirely different world, completely separated from everything else in Equestria. Admittedly, he'd not seen much outside of Ponyville except for the few exercises with the militia abroad, but no place seemed to have quite the atmosphere that the Everfree did.
The tracks were surprisingly easy to follow, once he got his bearings. It was obvious that they had not been careful in their retreat; twigs snapped off at withers height, plants tramped down, prints uncovered and unhidden. A foal could have followed them. However, they were not particularly fresh, and some even had pooling of water from the morning dew, so it was obvious that Quillyn had quite a trek ahead of him. Before he ventured too far into the forest, he checked over his supplies once more, tightened up the straps on his gear with a few tugs of his teeth, and followed the tracks deeper into the wood.
Every now and then, he would find a wisp of oddly colored hair clinging to a tree or a bush. The color of bright blue tourmaline and nearly as luminous, Quillyn often studied each piece. It was rarely more than a strand or two, but the stark contrast against the darkness of the forest made it difficult to miss. The length was usually longer than he was tall, and Quillyn was not a particularly short pony. The prints near the strands were oddly skinnier, but holed much the same way that the others were. It all perplexed him quite a bit. He had no real idea of the physical form of these changelings, if he is in fact chasing after them. All he had to go on were the prints and the odd blue strands of mane he found.
Sweat had begun to plaster his mane to his body underneath his fatigues, and Quillyn had tucked his cap into his backpack. The day was hot, and wind did not penetrate this far into the forest, it seemed. Heat waves rose from the foliage underhoof, and his clothes stuck to him sickeningly. It seemed that even the animals had laid low to avoid the temperature, the only sounds being the occasional bird flapping raucously from its perch overhead as the beleaguered stallion passed. The sun had risen to its zenith in the sky, though it was still as dark as ever in the forest.
Breaking for lunch as his throat began to grow raw from panting, Quillyn laid down amidst some odd, wide-leafed plant that looked relatively comfortable, stripping off his sodden fatigues and tossing them up onto some nearby branches. With a blink, he noticed the sweat dripping off of the clothes. Shaking his head incredulously whilst rooting through his pack, he brought out a canteen and took long, greedy swigs from it. His satisfied sigh seemed muted amongst the summer heat, the sound lost amongst the leaves, their glossy surfaces shining in what light there was.
As he sat up to look for something to eat in his pack, the spindly pony caught a glimpse of something glittering in the distance through the trees, and a catch of sound. The sound of water slapping up against a shore. Newly invigorated, Quillyn grabbed up a bit of bread in his mouth and trotted towards the water, being rewarded for his effort with an expanse of lake spanning for a league or so in every direction. The crystalline water seemed to call to him, the wind cool and refreshing as it hit him as he emerged. The forest bordered all around the shoreline, and he could see no other signs of anypony else in the area.
The lake was as cold and wonderful as he had thought it would be. The sound of rushing water greeted his ears as he dove into it with reckless abandon, and he could see almost two feet in the relatively clean water. Mud rushed up to meet his hooves when he reached the bottom, and he used it as a springboard to launch himself back to the surface. Spraying mist from his nostrils as he breached the water, Quillyn laughed happily at his luck, his voice echoing across the lake in babbling chorus. 
Quillyn dove under a few more times before settling into a lazy float, bobbing just underneath the surface of the water, his nose jutting up above it. The occasional fish bumped up against his body, though he paid them no heed, legs splayed to his sides as he floated on his back. The brisk cold had dwindled to a comfortable coolness, soothing his sore muscles, drifting along with nary a sound. He drifted along like this for some time, though he was not quite sure how long he'd been there. It mattered little at the time. However, something soon roused him from his relaxation with a start.
A girlish giggle echoed across the water, his reflexes causing his body to seize up. The laughter was distorted underneath the water, but it was laughter sure enough. Poking his head up out of the water, still laying on his back, he slowly peered around, taking stock of where he was. He'd not floated too far away from the shore, but far enough so that it would take a minute to swim back. There, on the shore near his pack, was a filly dressed in his fatigues. Dark grey with a deep blue mane, she grinned at him as their eyes met and dashed off into the forest, the way he had been going.
Flipping over onto his stomach hurriedly and spluttering a surprised call after her, Quillyn thrashed his way to shore, taking his backpack and stumbling into the straps before galloping after her. She set an easy, loping gate, giggling all the way, casting glances over her shoulder back at him at every turn. The lake had done his aches well, but had started to numb his muscles along with it, his hooves seeming to find every root and rock that the forest presented him with, though he managed to keep her in sight. "Get back here!" he cried amidst his panting, "Come on, I won't be mad if you just give me back my clothes!"
The filly dashed around a blind corner, Quillyn nearly sliding into a tree in his scrambling to catch up with the elusive pony. His hooves caked in mud and splattering more across his body, he began to look more freckled than he already was, charging headlong after the girl, only catching glimpses now and then. He was hopelessly lost now, beginning to not even care about the clothes, but following her for lack of anything else to do in his situation. The forest around him seemed to grow darker and more close, the thick air stifling and difficult to breathe, especially in his state.
Pain exploded across his skull, traveling like lightning down his spine, and he could sense his movement immediately halted. Quillyn felt his body crumple to the ground, hitting with enough force to knock what wind there was out of his lungs. The ribs on his left side felt oddly liquid. Forcing his eyes open through the pain, he stared up at a stone wall, his blood smeared across the front of it. With a weak grunt, the stallion numbly began to look around, his limbs feeling as if they were vibrating of their own volition. The searing, burning pain had begun to subside to an overbearing sensation of ache, but just as his breath was returning, it was taken away once again by what he saw.
Standing where he had just come barreling through was the filly wearing his uniform. Her giggling had taken a sarcastic edge, and she stripped off the uniform, having not even broken a sweat during the hard run. Tossing it to the ground, her form shimmered and lost its definition, becoming a beast Quillyn had never seen before. Standing about the size of a standard pony was a creature with no discernible pupils, hard, horn-like protrusions over its body, curving wickedly. It almost seemed as if it was segmented in places, and as it grinned, fangs jutted out from behind its lips. Holes seemed to be bored into its legs from about the shin down to the hooves themselves.
The bushes rustled nearby, the beast's grin never faltering. A tall, wispy creature stepped into the small clearing as Quillyn's vision grew bleary, the pain starting to overcome him. "Excellent," he heard it say, sounding as if two voices were woven into one, unmistakably feminine, "He was alone. He lies broken at our feet... and he will draw the rest to us... right into the trap." The stallion tried to say something, but his lips would not work, his voice coming out in a thin squeak. The exertion was too much, and he felt everything grow warm, his vision dimming to black.
Holes.