//------------------------------// // Sounds // Story: Quiensabe // by Leafed Timberwolf //------------------------------// I looked down to my paws. My left paw, canine, is furry and bluish. My right paw is also furry, but it’s that of a jaguar, yellow and spotted, with claws. With my right paw I touched the air above the outline. Ah! It’s a terribly intense pain, like rolling a joint, but throughout my limb. My wings quivered, I staggered back. My left wings is blue and leathery with yellow dots, and my right wing is feathered, green and orange – I preen it constantly with the oils of my uropygial gland, so my feathers were shiny and still healthy then. My left leg’s fur is white, I believe it’s a deep part, and my right leg is scaly and clawed and its smells odd, very lizardy. My tail is funny, it has parts of a dog’s tail, with long green feathers coming out the end. My coat is light blue in general, but my equine head is white-coated. Although it considered of bad luck where I come from, I’ll admit I have complete heterochromia in my irises. Right: murky red, left: light blue. I hear it’s very distracting. If I hissed, you’d see my forked tongue is black, but worry not, I can’t get sick so it’s that way naturally, and I've come to decide that hissing is hideously rude and I won’t ever do it again. My right horn never quite grew with me, so I covered it with feathers I allowed to grow a bit wild and long; I have an antler on the left, like that of a deer. As for my mane, it’s very normal, except is not composed of hair, but out of long feathers; the feathers are green, red, and blue. You might not know this, but Discord - since we’re the same species- is particularly tall for a draconequus, or maybe just compared to me. Upright, I reach up to almost half of his equine neck at most. As I’m at it, the mission was fairly lengthy, empty, echoey. I was in what I assume was the prayer room, as I said, ruined and empty, perhaps forty meters long, maybe twenty-some across. I was at the end of it, facing the other end, the western wall, long ahead and unreachable. There was nothing beyond the wall, about dozen meters, behind me. I wonder what the mission was for, the paintings on the walls had shown a moon and stars before they faded. There were no windows, although I believe there was a room to my right, where there were some blocked chamber doors, which might have led to the courtyard and stairs that led to the roof. At the western wall there was another set of dilapidated chamber doors which were barricaded from the inside, my side, behind which a large square area led to the kitchen, some living quarters - all of which were barricaded to keep ponies out - and to the entrance, which I had crossed only once, coming in. The entrance was a grand spectacle, it had twin bronze bells, if I can rely one my vision at the time - my eye had been injured -, which I hadn’t heard ring, nor had I heard collapse. One of my wishes was to hear the bells ring. * I looked up at the sky. So blue with a shining sun, and so, I looked down. The circle’s line was as it was four-hundred years ago. With a stretch of my back, I lied down and played with a feather, very disposed of letting another day bleed away. Slowly. Ta-ta-rum-tss-tss-ta-ra-ra Suddenly, I heard something. I heard something! Something that tumbled, fell, and rolled around. It made my ears perk up. Curiously, I hadn’t heard anything but birds and the insects at night, plus some other things. That clattering… Is it… something falling? Yes, like a pot! The kitchen! There is something in the kitchen!... Nonsense, there was nothing of value in this place even when I got here. No scavengers ever came around, the kitchen I’m sure was still roofed but it had no food. I pulled my head up and waited for a couple of minutes. Nothing. And so I lied down again. Was that the highlight of the day? Psh. Thud! - Thud! - THUD! – Crack and split! – Creaaak… Something was struck and struck again. My ears perked up. They palpitated with every hit. The noises came from the same direction, beyond the west portal. Something - Someone? No, impossible! - is breaking and pushing something wooden… One of the barricades! I shot up from how I was. My eyes were wide. Not that that’s an impressive feat, the wood was hard as sturdy as tree bark covering hard dirt, but they were placed in a discouraging way. Barrels and beams and other heavy things covered the doors, maybe the slightest remnant of magic was still working. Someone would’ve to want to move them to do so. Someone. Is getting through. A. barricade. My. Stomach. Turned. I felt. My heartbeat. In my ears. CRAAAACK! - CRASH! - “Ay!” I got on all fours immediately and as close to the door as the boundary permitted, leaving behind some feathers. Something. Made. A noise… Someone… No… Someth… something! Had made a conscious noise, right after that falling sound. Something large and heavy fell. The stairs! And it startled a creature enough to make him or her squeal… It was sharp… feminine? A filly? No no no, my mind is running wild... My heart did not start racing, but a hot vile-like feeling ran around it, and I felt a great dread, like something was crawling up my neck. Like something poisonous. It shocked me uncomfortably, like thinking I ate something I’m allergic to. Curiously, I am allergic to things - like apples, pears, and peaches, oh and almonds. Yuk. Makes me feel itchy where you know you can’t un-itch yourse- oh, right, the story. Turunk- Turunk- Crunk- Cruuunk. I heard scuffling, like someone was kicking and pushing things aside with great determination, even closer to the door. No way… Something? Do I dare say someone yet? Not at all. Something is moving the barricade on the other side of the portal doors! My heart then began racing. My upper body felt warm. I tensed. Each heart beat pupped horror. My fur shivered with every sound. Each fiber rose. The noises filled me with terror. Panic I hadn’t experienced in a while. My feathered wing’s feathers stood on end. And separated. I had chills on the other. I froze. I was in denial, not because I couldn’t believe someone was near, actually in the mission, but I had little terrors that the descendants of those who locked me here, they’d be the only ones who’d know I was there, had come to finish my being once and for all. I chuckled and shook my head. Would they shoot me with an arrow? A magic bolt? Run me through with a sword? Pierce me with a spear? Jaja ja! I would yell before the arrow and make the sound shield me from it, and for the rest they would have to get into the circle to do it, in which case I would scurry out, since there would be more than one thing alive in… These happy thoughts were an empty gesture however, since it wasn’t likely to happen. So what is happening? I. Was. Frozen in anticipation. The noises stopped. I waited some more minutes in silence. Forcing myself not to think. Hoping that I’d hear a sound again. Lest my soul would’ve hit a new low. I realized, I began wanting to believe. I waited. I growled, as if my stomach had told me it was hungry - or how I think that is like. What could’ve he or she done?! Stopped for breakfast!? Decided any plunder is not worth the effort!? Likely he or she doesn’t know I’m here. I took a deep breath. I felt this soaring feeling in my core, like I’d finally be free. It was like what I imagine holding one’s own breath and gasping, wanting more air out of necessity, is like. My anticipation began to frustrate me. I shook my body and stared intently at the chamber doors. Parts of wooden benches had been nailed to the wall, and more things were stacked against it, like more doors, wheels, chairs and beams, but a good kick would make all of it come off, rusty nails and all. It was far away, dusty, like a myth, the beginning of a play, wanting to learn a new gals name or - Then it begun happening. Time seemed to slow. Thump!... Thump!... Thump!... Thump!... Thump!... Every feather. I have. Quivered with every thump. Every hair. Every scale. Every heartbeat. I could feel it throughout my neck. TRRR-THUMP! The wood rattled and coughed off a lot of dust. Thump! - Thump! - Trrr - THUMP! Crululu... The planks separated from the wall from the left side and tumbled off, and the doors opened for the first time in four hundred years. The left door came unattached from the top left and whomever was pushing made an extra effort to push it forward with a grunt. Debris fell before the doors. A wheel rolled for a bit before falling. A chair tumbled for a short distance. A door fell flat with a loud clap. The barricade was no more. My heart. was. Beating. I lost my nerve. I couldn’t speak out. And I forced myself into the same color as what was behind me, as to disappear. I swallowed. * She came in slowly. Very slowly. Like a vision.