After a few miles on the road I became immensely grateful that I’d made my departure in the evening, not just because I got to say goodbye to my loved ones right before I left, but also because the heat had died down tremendously. Twilight was already falling and the sun set the horizon in a vibrant blaze through the spectrum. Various bugs chirped and buzzed in the evening light along the flowery plains surrounding the only road out of town. My hoofsteps fell heavy in predominant silence, but never made me feel lonely, as the stars soon began to peek out onto the world from their swirling, ethereal home up high. A sigh of contentment escaped my lips and I continued to think of nothing in particular, simply trying to enjoy a silent symphony from the stars above, and the songs of the various fauna below.
After I’d passed what seemed to be about four hours on the road, I decided I should set up my tent and get to sleep so I’d be at least somewhat ready to trudge through the heat tomorrow. I was about at the halfway point to Ponyville, my first destination, maybe a little less though.
After the events that happened there with Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony, as well as all the other odd mishaps that town has seen, Ponyville has experienced a significant rise in tourism. But, my journey isn’t about being some tourist, only wanting to see the shallow beauty of the city, I want to live it.
After picking out a small clearing amongst a dozen or so trees off the West side of the road, I began to set up my tent. I was never much one for camping, but this felt different. This was a journey, I was living the stories like those of the characters in the various books I’d read over the years. Life felt vibrant and bold at that moment, as I hammered in the last of the tent’s stakes and lit a small lantern out in the graceful wilderness. I pulled a few apples out of my food bag and sat there and ate under the heavy branches of a nearby Oak tree. I wasn’t very hungry, but mostly wanted a reason to stay up a little longer and listen to the stars. As I grew increasingly tired and my hooves became unable to support my drooping head from the cool dirt, I thought I heard a familiar song again. The stars seemed a bit brighter for a brief moment, and I felt a sensation prickling in my veins, a chill that seemed to say: “watch out.”
I awoke less than an hour after falling asleep in my tent to a rather unpleasant sensation. It took a few seconds to clear my head and comprehend it all, and when I did I realized the entire right side of my coat was soaked.
It was then that I started to hear the heavy drops falling on and around my canvas cocoon, and a distant rumble of thunder.
There was a brief flash of lightning and an indiscernible silhouette conformed to the left wall of the tent.
Before I had time to make it out, it vanished. I tried to play it off as nothing and figure out what I was to do about the worst bed-wetting experience I’d had in more than a decade. I decided I might find reprieve amongst the denser patch of trees behind me.
I retrieved my raincoat from one of my bags, which were all thankfully waterproof, and slipped it on before sticking my head out into a stinging wall of tiny liquid daggers propelled by a blistering wind. I simply sat there for a couple minutes, taking my abuse from the weather, until I finally mustered up the willpower to gather my bags and pack up the tent.
I’d just about had everything cleaned up and ready to be moved to dry shelter, when another flash of lightning projected the same shadow from before onto the tree in front of me.
Panicked, I quickly spun around to see a cloaked figure with glowing eyes looming over me. I couldn’t see much of the creature, but it seemed to be at least part equine. I dropped three of the four tent stakes I held in my mouth, and brandished the remaining one at the figure before me.
A few tense seconds passed before the creature gave a low and gentle laugh. But, it wasn’t sinister, it sounded almost genuine.
Scared, tired, and soaked, I decided I didn’t want to play games anymore.
“Who are you?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice over the exploding droplets of water punching holes in the ground at my hooves.
“You ask, ‘who am I,’ and I shall tell you no lie.
I am Saltus, shaman of the hills.
But we must hurry out of here, for this storm aims to kill.”
The creature’s odd manner of speaking caught me off guard, but I soon remembered hearing it before from the zebras that lived in Hayfield.
The shaman didn’t allow me time to my thoughts before he began trotting past me and off towards the mountains a quarter mile behind my campsite. I realized he hadn’t hurt me yet, so that was good. He also seemed to be warning me of the storm, a little late for that. At any rate, I assumed he had a warm and dry place to call home so I hurriedly gathered up the dropped stakes and followed a little ways behind.
After ten soaking minutes, we arrived at the base of one of a half-dozen peaks clustered together, stretching out for a couple miles in every direction. I dropped my jaw as I took my first step into the thicket of trees marking the beginning of our ascent.
Inside the forest was a world all its own. Cool, wispy clouds hung listlessly among the wet, glistening branches of the trees, seemingly making a second layer of foliage. Inside the fog I could see the soft, golden lights of fireflies peacefully pulsing, and gently refracting amongst the millions of droplets of water in the saturated atmosphere.
At first there were only about a dozen, but every few minutes there would be at least a hundred of them dancing playfully in the nocturnal mist.
It was a dance I’d seen hundreds of times before, in the now obscured stars above. The creatures of this dense forest never get to see those stars, but they still made their own down here.
Saltus turned towards me for the first time since our first uncomfortable encounter, his yellow eyes making a similar glow. He slowly removed the hood of his cloak from his head and revealed that I was indeed correct. The shaman was a zebra, looking to be a few years or so younger than Alexander.
He then shut his eyes in a blink much harder than normal. Upon opening his eyes again I noticed they had lost their luminescence. He saw my shocked expression and began explaining very matter-of-factly.
“There’s a recipe from my tribe that I know,
One that in the dark makes one’s eyes glow.
A brew that gives one perfect sight,
Even on the darkest night.”
This didn’t surprise me; zebras are very well known for their vast array of potent magical brews. After I let my awe at the recent spectacle and my current surroundings die down, certain questions began popping up in my head.
“Listen, um, Saltus was it?” He gave a gentle nod of his head. “I am grateful that you found me and have offered me refuge, but how exactly did you find me?”
He chuckled lowly as he shut his eyes, breathing in before giving his response.
“I can see by your cutie mark
That you have an affinity to the dark.
It is that which befuddles me,
Did Luna’s warning you not see?”
His words confused me for a moment. It wouldn’t be hard to guess that I have a thing for the night judging from my cutie mark, a tight cluster of stars that roughly form an eighth note on overlapping splashes of black and purple. However, if I understood what he was saying, was he inferring that he can also understand the hidden messages of the night sky?
“You mean, you can also ‘understand’ the stars? You can hear the songs they sometimes sing and the words they wordlessly speak?”
He nodded silently. Something suddenly clicked in the back of my mind; I remembered faintly hearing them say something before I nodded off. What was it? Wait, it was….
Watch out.
I began to see that Saltus was likely telling the truth; how else could he have known there would be danger outside of this endlessly dense forest? I soon also began to contemplate the possibility of others sharing my special talent. It didn’t make me feel any less special, if anything, it made me feel less alone.
“Luna warned of a phenomenal storm,
That was far greater than the norm.
An unexpected monster from the Everfree,
Of which one’s only option is to flee.”
Unexpected was right, I’d checked with all of the pegasi in town about the weather for today almost a month in advance. There was definitely no storm on schedule for today. It didn’t surprise me that it’d come from a place like the Everfree Forest though, I’d heard haunting tales of how nature recklessly conducted itself in there.
“You may ask me all the questions you’d like,
But only after we finish our hike.
I’d like to quickly get to my home,
If you’d still like to come.”
Saltus seemed to be a bit more amiable now that he saw I was safe. I gave him a warm smile in gratitude before answering him.
“I’d be honored Saltus. It’s certainly not as if I’ve anywhere better to be,” I gave an exasperated chuckle.
He too, smiled and nodded as he turned back around and began following the beaten path ahead of us, up the winding hills and deeper into the opaque forest. I began to finally feel at ease with my current situation, and once again began following my mysterious savior.
The rest of our ascent was quiet, save for the distant roar of thunder and drops of water falling softly from the trees. Small rivers began carving out the moist earth as more rain kept falling and gravity pulled it down the increasingly steep hills, leaving small pools amongst flatter parts of land and mossy rock.
After about thirty minutes of hiking through the serenade of the storm, (and lots of mud,) the trunk of a once enormous tree halfway buried in the hillside came into view. A spectacle all its own, it became thoroughly more interesting as I noticed the lights coming from within and deduced that my new acquaintance must live inside.
The zebra pushed open the front door and politely motioned for me to go ahead of him. The interior was of course all wood, softly lit by various decorative candle lanterns around the main room, complimented by the faint smell of cinnamon. There was a small kitchen nook to the right, bordering the extent of the main room. Beyond that was a single door built into the far wall, and a small closet to the left of it.
“My home to you I hope is a pleasant sight,
In which you are welcome to spend the night.”
Another grateful smile crept upon my lips. “It certainly is beautiful,” I spoke as I tracked my head across the expanse of the room. “But I can’t impose on you; you did enough saving me from the storm as it is. I wouldn’t feel right if I did, so if it’s alright I’d just like to dry off a bit and then I’ll pitch my tent outside.”
A confused and slightly annoyed look came upon the shaman’s face.
“My offer to you was not optional,
My statement was only rhetorical.”
I laughed at the combined effect of his expression and hearing another one of his clever rhymes. I nodded my head and agreed as I saw him begin to smile in relief. I really didn’t like imposing on him; it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but staying in someone’s house after meeting them so soon and….unpleasantly didn’t seem fair.
I aimed to rectify that, to find any way that I could help him out and earn my keep. Saltus closed the door behind us and casually made his way to a cauldron in the kitchen area. He looked down into it disappointedly for a moment before shaking his head.
“Uh, is something wrong?” I asked Saltus with a bit of awkward trepidation.
“In my haste to rescue you,
I’m now left with coagulated brew.”
My face fell and I briefly looked away as I felt more guilt at causing this kind stranger distress. But as soon as it fell, my face brightened right back up when I saw a chance to pay him back.
“Well what if I helped you make a new batch?”
Saltus shook his head again in disdain.
“While your offer is very kind,
I’d need more ingredients,
And these ingredients are hard to find.”
Now it was my turn to refuse a refusal. “I won’t accept that answer, surely you originally got them from around this forest, so I should be able to find more around here too, right?”
The zebra pondered the notion for a moment, clearly heavy in debate over allowing me to go through with the favor. Eventually he closed the eyes on his hung head and smiled as he spoke to me.
“A list I shall give you to help you see,
Where all of these hidden ingredients may be.”
The old wooden door of Saltus’ home creaked as it shut behind me and I walked back out into the storm fighting its way through the trees. My host had been kind enough to supply me with a specially treated cloth cloak similar to his own that repelled water with marvelous effects.
I always did love the rain; the way it closes off the world around you and makes everything seem smaller. The curtain of water surrounding you coupled with its steady patter on the dark earth below always felt like a faint embrace, even though you there was only ever you.
After taking a few deep breaths of the cool, moist, night air, I reached into one of the twin saddlebags I had been given and pulled out a map showing me to the three ingredients Saltus needed. I noted, to a small degree of dismay, that his writing didn’t have the same rhyming effect as his spoken words. It reminded me of how I’d always wanted to ask a Zebra a question about oranges to watch them struggle with a rhyme to make, but tonight just didn’t feel like the right time to do that.
The first thing on the list didn’t leave me with much of a commute; Saltus needed fifty of the fireflies I’d seen earlier. When he first made the request I was a little concerned with how arduous such a task might be, but he silenced my doubts and handed me a small vial that he said would attract them.
I walked over to where a large group now hung silently in the air, wrapped around the trees as if they were ivy snaking to the top. I reached into the other saddlebag and produced the vial he’d given me. I didn’t much care to see what the spinach-green elixir he gave me would taste like, so I simply popped the cork off the top and chugged the whole thing without taking a single breath.
At first, nothing happened. But soon I felt a warming sensation like from a spicy food, but in the back of my eyes. The sensation grew too strong and forced me to shut my eyes, but once I opened them again I realized I could see much more clearly through the dark forest. I raised a hoof up away from my face and noted a gentle yellow glow reflected off of it.
I became elated at my newly acquired super-power as I reached back into the bag to get the jar I was intended to trap the fireflies in. Once I had the object firmly grasped in my right wing, I looked back up to see an entire cloud of tiny flying lanterns surrounding me.
I couldn’t see even a leg’s length ahead of myself, and I had to try hard to not breathe in a mouthful of the little guys. There were so many I couldn’t count; the endless collection of them making a miniature sun under the eternal shade of the canopy. After a minute or so of staring at them, I remembered my mission and gently moved the glass jar in an arc from my side and out to the end of my snout. The living lights made no effort to evade their capture, still as mesmerized at my glowing eyes as I was from their own brilliance. I put the lid on the jar and held it up in front of me. A smile of child-like wonder adorned my face at the sight of dozens upon dozens of tiny, flying Hearth’s Warming lights confined into one small space.
I gently replaced the jar in the saddlebag I’d originally acquired it from and fetched the map at the same time. After studying the location for my next item, a strange color-shifting fungus, I scratched my head in confusion. The map was indicating that I would find the fungus, this Mutalorem, inside the waterfall. I wasn’t about to question the directions of someone who lived in this dark forest, as I would surely fare no better on my own, but that admittedly seemed strange.
The indicated water feature was about a five minute hike up the increasingly steep hills that stretched up to the deep violet patches of sky fighting through the dense storm clouds. The whole way up was a constant battle against the endless rivers of mud that snaked around my hooves, trying to bring the entire mountain with them.
I pushed through a thicket of wet shrubs adorned with glistening, pink, night flowers, and laid eyes upon the aquatic spectacle before me. The waterfall flowed out from an odd crack in the side of a steep part of the mountain. It dropped freely for about fifteen yards before crashing down into a set of descending terraces. It was hard to tell if the pools were natural or ponymade, as the walls that encased them were large rings of roughly hewn soft pink marble. The marble had a peculiar sheen to it from the rain and pockets of moon and starlight that shone through, coalescing with it on the earthy stone.
I spread my wings out and hopped up into the air, pumping them hard to lift me up to the first terrace. I alighted on the rim of the lowest one, which still laid nearly three body lengths above the ground. I tentatively dipped one of my hooves into the shimmering pool and felt the cool water ease and condense my tired muscles.
I began to trot through to the other side of the first pool but came to see that I would need to walk along the edges of the rest of them, as they became increasingly deeper. I hopped and wobbled along the next two basins until I reached the largest one at the base of the falls. I took the moment to look around at the craggy rock wall looming to my right, continuing a ways above to form a fine peak. To my left was a somewhat impressive drop, as I was now above most of the trees around me and the lowest pool. This spot free of dense flora gave way to the cluttered heavens above; to Luna’s majesty dueling the forces of the Earth below.
The roaring of falls deafened the pattering rain bursting on the stone beneath me. I once again pulled out the map from my bag to double check that I was indeed in the right place. After glancing over it I accepted that I’d deciphered the map correctly in believing that I was to go through the waterfall and into the mountain.
I tentatively approached the frothing waters and stuck a hoof out into its depths. I expected to push straight through but was surprised to feel the resistance of the mountain itself directly behind it. I became puzzled and concerned; what was I to do now?
I sat down briefly to analyze my surroundings, trying to figure out another way behind the falls. As my eyes drifted into my distorted figure in the pool below, I got my answer. From the pocket of moonlight above I could see down into the stone pool. A little ways down I could see glowing fungi clinging to the sides and bottom. In their light I could make out what appeared to be a tunnel going under the falls.
Seeing as I was already soaking wet from the downpour, I didn’t much mind the surprise diving excursion. I mentally prepared myself as I also began ensuring the bags were closed completely and that the water-repellant spell was still taking effect. After finding everything checked out ok, I took one quick look to the dark skies above and then plunged into the chilly pool.
I fought to keep my eyes open as I swam almost blind in my effort to follow the lights of the submerged mushrooms. They seemed to cluster mostly around the opening and inside of the tunnel itself, so I would thankfully be going in the right direction if I just followed the bright lights.
Once I reached the inside of the underwater passage, I immediately noticed just how dense the fungi were inside there. Hundreds upon hundreds of light blue torches glowed brightly as they clung to all sides of the tunnel.
I had no idea how long this stone hallway was going to be, but had faith that if Saltus had made this trek before, so could I. After a few quick twists and turns, the passage began to shoot upwards. Within moments I could feel myself break from the water, the soft and deep muffling in my ears giving way to the clear sounds of my harsh breaths. Perhaps the old shaman was a bit more athletic than he let on.
As I cleared the water out of my eyes I couldn’t help but gasp as my vision ran over every square inch of the room before me. The tiny tunnel opened up in a small hole in the floor at the back of a cavern, with a high and narrow passage continuing on around a corner.
The walls were a dark earthy brown tone and converged into a vaulted ceiling above me. Such a dull sight was made wondrous, however, by the addition of segments of wall that had broken off to show numerous pockets of Amethyst geodes. It was a rather dark area, but the faint lights of the fungi that continued out of the pool and on the damp floor below were reflected in pinprick twinkles from the lavender crystals.
Luckily there was only one path for me to take, so I headed on through the dark passage before me. As I rounded the first bend of the corridor, it began to open up into a vast hallow core in the center of the peak. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to go most of the way up the remainder of the mountain. There were broken shelves of rock that ran up and down this core in random intervals. In the center, there was mostly a drop that seemed to end up in an underground reservoir, though it was hard to tell in this room with only a faint bit of illumination from moonlight in an opening near the top.
I consulted the hand-drawn image I was given of the fungus I was tasked to find. Aside from its body with a rainbow-like oily sheen, it had a rather distinct shape. There was a thick central body that housed anywhere from four to seven off-shoots of a much more spindly build that snaked above the main body. I stopped at the edge of the shelf that continued from the path behind me and surveyed the outcroppings above. After a few minutes of scanning, my vision reached about two thirds of the way up to the skylight where the moon was silently filtering in. Catching the light above it, I found a small cluster of the Mutalorem growing around the rim of one of the rock shelves.
I began my ascent up the hollow stone spire by leaping to a ledge a few body lengths above me and to my right. This would be a far more daunting task for a non-pegasus, but I was still uneasy of the dark drop below me should I somehow fall. Most of the shelves weren’t too far apart and I began to effortlessly jump up and around the curved walls of the mountain’s interior. Though after about a dozen easy jumps, I came to see there was no ledge nearby, and still a good ways to the top.
I didn’t want to fly this; I didn’t like the idea of going straight up and over the pit. I liked the security of these little rest stops along the way, but now I had no choice. I looked to the other side of the wall and saw my only next option. It wasn’t too high, but it was as far across the gap as it could be. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before springing off the outcropping and spreading my wings as far as they could go.
Once I felt the heavy force of gravity start pulling me down, I began furiously pumping my wings. I was working them far harder than I needed to, but I would have much rather tried too hard than face my alternative. A few tense moments of haphazard flight and I soon alighted upon the shelf just below the desired fungi.
I stopped to catch my breath and thought I began to hear something nearby. It was a faint scuttling noise, one accompanied by a kind of digging in the wall next to me. I paid it no mind, I was merely happy to have that last trial behind me. I got back up to my hooves to reach up on my hind legs towards the fungus. Yet, as I did I realized I should have paid more attention to the sounds. At that moment, eight long legs poked out of a head-sized burrow right next to my face as the body of an unpleasantly large arachnid emerged and began crawling towards me.
I don’t like large creatures.
I don’t like spiders.
I especially dislike large spiders.
As I let out an unflattering squeal for a stallion such as myself, I lost my balance and began to fall into the darkness. After even more panic at my current predicament, I finally regained my aerial balance and began to control my descent with my wings. I was falling too fast to just try to stop before I hit Celestia-knows-what down below. So I banked myself to be parallel to the wall and began to gallop along it in a downward spiral with my current momentum and wing stability.
As I began to slow down I eventually started to level out horizontally thanks to the assisting force of my wing power. As soon as I did I came across another shelf. I intentionally overshot it to get my hooves off on the back edge of it and leapt back into the air. There wasn’t enough room to fly forwards and gain altitude, so I had to keep leaping from ledge to ledge as I continually ran in short bursts along the wall then launched myself into a brief glide again and continued the process.
Continuing this eventually got me back to where I once was at the humble spider’s abode. I carefully made my way back to fungus, the whole while checking the burrow continuously. I froze as soon as I saw the legs re-emerge. It crawled its entire body out and turned to face me. After a moment of sizing me up, it quickly turned around and scuttled back inside its home. Somehow I still don’t believe the whole ‘they’re more afraid of you than you are of them’ thing.
After briefly fighting my embarrassment I once again reached up to the spot where my desired ingredient was growing and plucked a few big oily caps and put them in my bag.
I sat down on the rock ledge to consult my map for the final ingredient. Saltus had written that this next one would be a problem for any non-pegasi, once again fixing my curiosity on how he’d ever acquired these ingredients before.
Apparently decades of growth on the top of this mystic peak has led an ordinary deciduous tree to spawn a fruit unlike anything else. Saltus had no name for the mutated sprout, but merely requested I be very careful around the aged and incredibly rare tree.
Immediately, I looked up to the gap in the rocky ceiling that lay a short ways above me. It wouldn’t be too hard to climb up there, though there was no telling what type of climbing conditions would be out there if I wasn’t able to fly.
I got back up to my hooves and began to make as I had in leaping from outcropping to outcropping. Within minutes I was precariously perched on the rim of the opening, simultaneously inside and out of the peak itself.
The clear night sky was a wondrous sight to behold now that the clouds had cleared the dark celestial canopy. A rumble of thunder shook me out of my reverie as I tried to discern where such a disturbance could have come from on a cloudless night.
An idea then crossed my mind as I looked down past my hooves and towards the forest below, which was now completely engulfed in the thick storm clouds that were now rolling violently below me. I hadn’t realized just how far I’d climbed inside that spired cavern.
With no storm to keep me grounded I stretched my wings as far as they would go and leapt down to the squall below. Long before my wings would ever graze the monsoon below I pulled up into a sharp climb and spun around to face the mountain.
From this new viewpoint I then saw my final destination a brief flight above me. I began my acceleration towards the very top of the mountain.
I alighted upon a small boulder in which the tree’s roots burrowed underneath, stretching far down into the rock. It was a fairly average sized tree, but its remarkable aspect was the almost crystalline fruit that hung lazily from the various branches, sharply reflecting the silver moonlight above it.
Magic or not, I wasn’t sure how any tree could form gemstones out of its foliage so I tentatively grasped one of the pear-shaped emerald fruits and brought it under the scrutiny of my azure eyes. I then tried to test the consistency of it by poking my hoof into it firmly. Much to my surprise, it fractured into a dozen different pieces and fell to the ground before shattering even further into smaller fragments.
Still bewildered, I stared at the peculiar green shards, trying to understand this odd fruit. After pulling another one down and trying another texture test, I got similar results and came to the conclusion that these crystal fruits had the consistency of a somewhat brittle hard candy. It was fascinating; they were very much like big chunks of rock candy growing on trees.
Saltus hadn’t mentioned anything about them being safe to eat, so I simply gathered up a few and gently laid them in the last empty pouch of my bag. I kind of anticipated they would taste like green apple candies though.
I couldn’t gauge what time it must be from the position of the moon, but I figured it was late. I looked forward to not only having a warm and dry place to sleep, but a place that I had earned my stay in. It was relaxing to have finished with my task; though hopefully my future adventures wouldn’t be quite as, well…adventurous.
Eager to get to my home for the night, I took one last look up to the stars and heard another soft, beautiful tune of theirs. The sound was louder now than I’d ever heard it before since I was seemingly so close to them up here. When Luna created this nocturnal arrangement she clearly had something as strong and beautiful as the love of her sister on her mind and welling in her heart.
I don’t usually hear ‘instruments’ in these celestial songs, but rather a variety of sounds that are indescribable, and unique enough to identify the emotion or idea of their origin in the goddess’ heart. Her magic and knowledge knows no bound.
Pushing my reverie aside I approached the edge of the peak and looked down to the quilt of thick, dark clouds below. I stared for a moment in contemplation of how I should get down from here. I was afraid that climbing back through the cavern would be too much stress on the recently acquired fruits, so I needed another route.
I continued pondering a solution until an epiphany struck me as energetically as the smirk it brought to my face. I took a few steps back…closed my eyes….then ran straight off the mountain, leaping high into the moon before gracefully dancing with gravity back towards the forest below.
Storm clouds such as these could generally be fairly tough to punch through, so I folded my wings in and continued my dive with hopes I could force my way straight through them.
The descent lasted longer than I thought it would and I braced against the cold, high-altitude winds fighting me back. I couldn’t stop now, I had to keep going, faster, and faster. After a condensed eternity the tempest raced up towards me as I tried to make my body streamlined as an arrow. I pointed my head down and readied myself for the breach.
My eyes being closed the whole time, the only sensation I remember is of feeling the cool droplets surrounding me in the murky cocoon; having thousands of chilly beads cling to the fur on my face.
As soon as the sensation was gone I reopened my eyes and tried to blink the raindrops from my blurry vision. I knew I only had a brief window in which I could correct my path, so I unfurled my wings with great haste and strength as they caught the wind underneath. I pulled up as hard as I could just as my dangling hooves skimmed through the saturated leaves of the forest canopy.
I attempted to slow down quickly by angling my wings to catch the air. I soon came to a hovering stop, viewing the undulating woods as they climbed the peaks and valleys of the surrounding area. I no longer had the luxury of being above the storm, so I hastily made my way back under the foliage umbrella to begin the search for a way back to the shaman’s.
It admittedly took a bit longer than it should have for me to work my way back to the pools at the base of the mountain, but from there I mostly knew my way anyhow. The rain was still soaking the area around me, but it had died down to a cool, thin mist that snaked silently around every tree.
The trek back did not take nearly as long, as I managed to find a rudimentary trail laid out by my previous hoofsteps in the soppy mud within half the time it took me to make them.
Cold, wet, and tired I finally saw the dancing fireflies once more. I stopped a moment to appreciate them before beginning to feel a little guilty for taking some of their brethren, but I had a debt to repay for the kindness of a stranger.
I parted from their presence with a small smile across my lips and began to close up the final gap to Saltus’ tree home.
When I arrived at the door, the zebra greeted me with a grateful smile that lit up the dark woods. As I smiled back he once again ushered me into the warmth of his organic home.
“Ah my friend the generous pony,
Have you the fruits of your quest to show me?”
I wearily nodded my head and handed him the saddlebag. After rummaging around the various compartments of the satchel he too nodded his head.
“I thank you for gathering all I requested,
Now I think that it’s time that you rested.”
I wiped the mud off my hooves with small towel he handed me that I also used to dry myself off with. I trotted over to a corner of the room where a bed of large pillows and thick quilts had been laid out for me. I unceremoniously plopped down and felt the cushion swallow me up, and I had no intentions of fighting it.
Sleep came upon me faster than I’d expected as my eyelids became impossible to control and exhaustion got the better of me. I rolled over and wrapped the blanket around me tight as I quietly sighed.
At the far end of the room Saltus was adding the various ingredients I’d gathered to a potion base he seemingly prepared while I was out. He wasn’t at it very long before he silently nodded to himself that everything was in order and then proceeded to extinguish the lanterns around the room before retiring for the night.
Skydiving, giant spiders, and rock candy fruit all certainly made a very interesting first day of my adventure. I knew the rest of my trips wouldn’t be any easier, and I secretly loved that.
As I closed my eyes one last time, I looked out the window near my head. The sky was entirely clear now, and as few faint rays of moonlight draped across my face I listened to the faint sounds of the forest insects chirping in the distance. Their soft singing faded away into nothingness as I drifted into a different realm.