The Journal From the Stars
Chapter 1: The Book
It was a clear warm day in the Everfree Forest, yet those who knew the forest would still keep their eye’s open to their surroundings as it was place where nature took care of itself, making it both unpredictable and untamable. Anything could get caught by surprise and fall victim to the forest, such as these two ponies, the purple unicorn Twilight Sparkle, and the yellow pegasus Fluttershy. The two had come to visit a friend that lived in the forest, a zebra named Zecora. However the two never made it to Zecora’s hut.
“Run!” Twilight shouted as a pack of Timberwolves burst through the underbrush of the forest.
The two ponies ran as fast as their legs would carry them, trying to get away from the Timberwolf pack that gave chase. The wolves barking and sniping at the ponies, yet at the same time making no real attempt to stop them from escaping.
“Somethings not right Twilight!” Fluttershy yelled, “They could have had us -”
Fluttershy was cut off by the sound of a wolf’s mouth clamping shut right next to her. The sound of its rock teeth hitting each other caused the frighted pegasus to yip and shoot up into the air. Twilight looked back to see Fluttershy fly into the air only to see the the pegasus quickly come back down as black dark storm clouds started to form into the sky.
“Really!” Twilight shouted as it began to rain and thunder, the storm steadily building up it intensity.
“Twilight! There's a cave over their,” Fluttershy said point her hoof in the direction of a nearby cave as she flew back down towards the ground, “We could lose the wolves and shelter from the storm,” She said flying above Twilight.
“That sounds good, make sure you get in first!”
Fluttershy flew ahead of Twilight knowing what she was planing. Fluttershy flew as fast as she could. the wind at her back causing her to fly at breakneck speed that she normally couldn't fly at and crashed on the cave floor trying to land. Twilight entered a moments later with a flash from a teleportation spell and quickly turned to cast a barrier spell over the entrance.
“That should keep them out,” Twilight said panting after erecting the barrier over the cave entrance.
The two were quiet for a moment, recovering from the run, shaking the water out of their coats and catching their breath.
“Twilight, those Timberwolves, something wasn't right. That wasn't normal behavior, there was multiple times they could have had used pinned or worse,” Fluttershy stuttered.
“I know, it was more like they were herding us instead of hunting, then the sudden storm.” Twilight said shaking her head, "it doesn't make any sense."
She looked out the cave through the barrier she had erected. The Timberwolves all sat in a straight line, looking into the cave, emotionless like statues and unphased by the raging storm. The look of their glowing yellow eyes fixated on the entrance unnerved Twilight sending a shiver down her spine. Her attention was soon averted by a flash of lightning and a loud gasp coming from Fluttershy’s that could barely be heard by the thunder that followed.
She turned to see Fluttershy staring into the darkened section of the cave, a hoof over her mouth and eyes watering with tears. Curious on what had her friend upset, Twilight walked over to her side. Unable to see past the darkness, Twilight casted a spell to emitted a light from her horn. She too was taken back at what was in the dark corner of the cave.
Laying on the ground was a skeleton, but not a skeleton of any creature she had ever seen. It was long and slender, clearly bipedal by how the limbs were positioned, It reminded her of a minotaur but it was clearly not as bulky. Shreds of tan clothing hung off it bones showing that it wore clothes, and was possibly intelligent when it was alive. One of its arms lay across its chest, the other was laying on the ground next to him. Oddly the hand of that arms was wrapped in thick vines.
After her initial shock at the site, Twilight walked up closer to it.
“I wonder what it was?” Twilight asked herself as she began to examine the skeleton.
Twilight grabbed a shred of cloth with her magic to bring it up for a closer look. As she did, the vines around the creature's hand suddenly come to life with movement. Twilight jumped back while Fluttershy gave a startled cry as the vines started to creak and unwrap from the skeletal hand. The two watched as the vines moves, slowly but steadily, unwrapping themselves from the hand and each other. Soon three vines could be seen, all straightened out going from the ground to the ceiling of the cave, but before the two ponies could react to them they sunk into the ground faster than the ponies could blink. With the vines gone Twilight's attention was brought back to the skeleton.
“No way,” Twilight said as she stared at the hand that was just unwrapped, and the book held in the skeletal hand.
“Twilight, I don’t think we found this cave by accident.” Fluttershy said with a slightly shaken voice.
“I was starting to think the same thing, first the Timberwolves just chase us, passing up many chances to make a meal out of us. Then the storm out of the blue bring you back to the ground after you took to the air. Now this, this is just too weird,” Twilight said as she wrapped the book with her magic and levitated it towards her, “Though I hope this book has some answers. Those vines were protecting it if I was a guessing mare.”
Twilight set the book down and opened it. She stared at the page for a second, not enough time to read its contents, before flipping to a new page.
“No,” She said as she flipped a page.
“No,” She said again, slight irritation filled her voice as she flipped to another page.
“No,” another page
“No, no, no,” Twilight said as she quickly scanned the pages till she hit the end of the book.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy asked seeing the irritation in Twilight’s eyes.
“It's not in Equestrian!” Twilight shouted, “Or any other language I’ve studied! I actually have no clue what this is written in!”
“Oh, umm I guess -”
“But I still have another way to find out what it says.” Twilight said cutting off her friend.
“Really, how?”
“Its an experimental spell I was reading about. It’s supposed to be how Star Swirl was able to translate the dragon language. It goes off the theory that one not only puts their thoughts down on paper but also unknowingly put a little bit of their soul into their writing. Basically I’m going to bring out that soul bit in this book and use it to translate it.”
“Umm, Twilight, that sounds a little...evil...”
“No more evil than a tool. The soul bit that is left behind is no longer part of a living being thus making it impossible to twist on a moral level.”
“Ok,” Fluttershy said hesitantly not full understanding Twilight before looking around the cave, “but this isn’t the best place to try out something experimental.”
Twilight let out a sigh before responding. “Fluttershy, This book has something important in it, something that my gut is telling me we need to know now, The events that lead us hear were to… coordinated,” Twilight then looked towards the entrance at the Timberwolves and the raging storm, “that and we can’t really go anywhere for a while. So instead of waiting for an answer to find us I’m going to find an answers.”
“I… well I guess that makes sense. So how are you going to go about it?”
“First, ” Twilight said as she shot a beam of magic on the barrier, “extending the life of the barrier just in case this takes longer than planned.”
Twilight then set the book on the ground.
“Now, the tricky part,” Twilight’s horn started to glow and pulsate with magic, “Got to get this just right and… THAT'S IT!” Twilight shouted as she released the spell from her horn.
The book started to glow in the purple light, brightly at first then slowly fading till it soon glowed no more.
“Did...did it work?” Fluttershy asked confused and unsure of what was happening
“I think so, let's open it up and-” Twilight said as she open the book before being silenced.
As soon as she opened the book a blast of blinding purple light and gale force winds came from the pages. The two ponies could only put a hoof to their faces to block the light from their eyes and wind from their faces .
“What’s happening!?” fear filled Fluttershy’s voice as she yelled.
“I don’t know! This isn't supposed to happen!”
The light changed to a dome of energy that glowed in a lavender light as the wind died down to a small breeze. The two ponies lowered their hooves to see what was going on.
“What the-” was all Twilight was able to get out.
The dome had started to grow at an alarming speed. The walls of the dome passed right through the to two ponies as all they could do was watch. They felt a wave of energy course through their bodies causing their fur to stand and a prickly feeling all over their body before causing them to passing out.
The ponies hit the ground as soon as the dome reached the barrier Twilight had erected. As soon as the dome and barrier touched each other they both shattered as magical sparks were sent flying and flashing. Then everything went dark inside the cave once again.
The Timberwolves lifted their heads as they saw the sparks of magic fly from the cave entrance. They stood up and slowly began to walk towards the cave. With each step the wolves took towards the cave, the more the raging storm would calm. When the pack had reach the cave entrance, the storm had died down and a blue sky started to peek through the clouds. The wolves then formed a semicircle around the cave mouth and positioned themselves facing away from the cave, looking out into the rest of the forest. Their wooden ears flicking every now and again to the sounds of breathing coming from the two sleeping ponies, along with the sounds of flipping pages.