Chapter 1
The Filly in the Forest
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The mist left by the humidity wafted on the leafy forest, confounding the marshy birds that nest on the highest branches of the forest or in-between the cracks of ruins long forgotten by the minds of most ponies.
As soon as the wind from the sea blew through, the mist was blown away, revealing what once was hid.
In-between the trees and the ruins, an old structure stood out: it was an abandoned castle, with its walls ground by the water and the creeping plants, the moat long filled with dry twigs and molded corpses of ill or stupid animals.
The drawbridge was eternally down due to the lack of the chains, and the chambers full of rubble and stagnate water inhabited by animals that haunt and get haunted daily in those walls.
Going up the stairs, it was possible to reach what was once the throne room of the castle, once place where the sister princess ruled together, now a room with broken windows and pieces of the roof missing due the attack of the atmospheric elements.
The floor used to contain traces of rotten flowers, and an equally-rotten red carpet, going from the remnants of the throne to the unhinged door. Puddles of water also on the stone floor.
However, the resent cleanings by the bearers of the elements had left it in far better condition than it used to be, though still nowhere near as grand as it had been long ago, in the past. The tapestries were repaired, the thrones polished, the floors clean, though still holding traces from the many animals that now called the castle their home.
What stuck out the most in the room was a star-shaped burn mark near the platform of the throne. Said burn mark would be believed to be fairly recent, because it still warded off any animal, however it had been a long time since it had been placed there and was faded.
Naturally, none of the animals wandering in the room particularly paid attention to it. They paid more attention to the large form of the red centaur that was destroying the forest around the castle as it went on a rampage.
Suddenly, there was a wave of magical energy that seemed to come from beneath the castle and a rainbow seemed to explode across the skies and the giant centaur seemed to shrink and disappear.
Still, the animals paid no mind to the star shaped burn, their focus on the rainbow in the sky. That is, until something strange happened. As the rainbow energies flowed throughout the castle, the day seemed to turn into night all of a sudden.
The animals became scared by the strange occurrence: the birds there flew away and sang the call of peril, the timber wolves barked in the vain attempt to bring back the Sun and the various herbivores ran around in fear.
From the floor, tendrils of sparkling dark smoke ascended in the room, and consolidated on the scorch mark, forming the shape of a little filly. The sparkling of the smoke became softer and softer, until it disappeared, leaving behind a strange smoke that kept a form. Then a lightning bolt, the origins of which were unknown, struck the form with all its might, followed by a thunder clap, scaring away every living begin in the range of five kilometres.
The smoke became solid, then it cracked and shattered in hundreds of pieces of burned ceramic, revealing the living flesh of a filly.
Its coat was ink black and had a mane of very dark-blue. Its wings looked onyx. Its eyes were a pale blue, the pupils more dragonic-looking than pony.
A cockatrice, the only creature that had dared to remain behind, seeing it was a pony and remembering its last encounter with a yellow winged one, hurried after the other animals, not wanting to repeat that incident with this pony.
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The filly slowly opened her eyes, shrugged off the last remnants of the burned ceramic, and said, “I have awakened.” She frowned. “Why did I say that?”
Shrugging it off, the filly looked at the disarrayed remains around her. She could vaguely remember them, but she was not sure if she had seen them always like this, or she knew the place she was in before its desertion.
“Curious. I know this place,” she said, looking around, “but I don’t think that I’m here to stare at ruins: I should go… but where?”
She put a hoof under her chin thoughtfully, as she looked around her.
“Concentrate, uh... um...” her dragonic eyes widened in horror. “I don’t remember my name!”
She looked around frantically for something, anything that could tell her who she was, but nothing in the ruins of wherever she was seemed to tell her anything. If anything, they just brought more questions. What was this place? Where was this place? Why was it in ruins? Why had she awoken here? Why couldn’t she remember anything?
She shut her eyes. “Concentrate. Just concentrate! Where should you go?”
An image of the high and immaculate spirals of Canterlot appeared in her mind.
“Canterlot? No, that would be insane. Celestia still desires my severed head on a spike; maybe she has even issued a reward for my capture or death. I will have to wait...”
She blinked. Who was Celestia? And why would she desire her capture or something as horrible as putting her head on a spike? How did she even now what that meant?
The filly moved to the next possibility, as the birds returned to fly around the room and the rats timidly returned to scavenge for food.
Another image that appeared in her mind was the tall and lush Mount Taigeto, where Cloudsale used to take its water… and where it used to throw away criminals and malformed foals.
How she knew this she did not know, nor, glancing at her wings, did she really want to if that was what pegasi did to malformed foals.
“The Taigeto, huh? But, why I would go there? I have no business there... do I? Oh, I wish I could remember.”
The filly groaned.
“Just what I am going to do? I have nowhere to go, I have no idea why I’m here, and I don’t know if I will be able to find shelter.” She looked around the ruined room. “I certainly can’t stay in this place... wherever it is.’ Sighing, the filly started to walk towards the destroyed door. “But if I don’t even try to find somewhere, I never will. Maybe things will be clearer once I have a base of operations."
That said, the filly walked out the ruined room, went down the wet and slimy stairs, and walked past the rooms that once showed the glory and wealth of its owners.
Then, after a long walk between the devastated halls, the filly reached the outside, and saw the forest around her. The tall trees seemed taller to the apparent filly than she felt they should, and the vegetation was so thick, that the only visible path was a paved one full of weeds.
“Alright,” she said. “I see only one path around here. I guess that is the only one leading to civilization.”
That said, she walked down the path carved in the dark woods.
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Time passed, and the filly was still walking the path.
“Uff,” she said panting, as she stopped to catch her breath. “Just how long is this path? I’m been walking for, what, five hours, stopping only a couple of times to rest, and I have yet to see anything even barely resembling a doing of a sapient species.”
But she kept walking, sure to find a roof to sleep under and some food before the sunset.
Then, finally, she saw a pinnacle looming over the trees, sign that there was a village near. The filly, despite her tiredness and hoof pains, ran towards the pinnacle at full speed. As she ran, more and more buildings came in her field of vision, and contentness grew in her heart… until she saw what looked like a tall crystal tree standing near the end of the path.
The filly had failed to notice it at first, but, when she saw the treehouse?, something clicked in her mind and she stopped.
“I... remember this place…” she said with a mumble, while standing at the very edge of the forest, some nervousness building in her.”But, I can't put my hoof on it...”
She walked slowly into the town.
Suddenly she saw a purple shape going out the crystal treehouse. At this point, irrational fear she could not explain filled her heart, and she ran away, back in the dark forest.
She ran and ran, not caring where she was going, as long as she got away from that purple thing. Whatever it was, it filled her with a fear she could not begin to fathom, nor explain.
Her hoof caught on a tree root and she fell forward, hitting her head on a tree and blacked out.
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There was something warm around her. If she remembered correctly it was call a... blanket?
She slowly opened her eyes. She was inside what looked like a tree. For a second, she worried she was in the crystal treehosue that purple thing had come from, but quickly realized this was a normal tree.
“I see you have awoken from you fall during trot.”
The filly looked around and saw an animal that looked like a pony, but had black and white stripes. It was a... zebra, if she remembered right? The zebra held out a bowl of some green liquid.
The filly eyed it, but the zebra’s smile was kind and gentle, so she took it and took a gulp. She yelped as her tongue and throat snared with pain.
“Be careful. This brew is very hot,” the zebra said, chuckling a little.
The filly coughed a few more times, then looked at the zebra.
“Who... who are you?” she asked, her voice a little raspy from the hot liquid that had poured down her throat.
The zebra smiled. “My name is Zecora, young filly. What is your name? Can you tell me?”
The filly looked down, tears in her eyes. “I... I don’t know my name. I don’t remember anything.”
The zebra named Zecora nodded. “A lost child, with no memories to feel warmed. A good thing the princess I have informed.”
The filly’s heart stopped. “P-p-p-princess?” she quivered, staring up at Zecora.
She nodded. “Princess Celestia, raiser of the sun. She has agreed to visit and—”
The filly didn’t even let her finish. She leaped from the bed, her horn flaring, startling the zebra. Taking this chance, the filly shot out the door of what she now saw was a hut and bound down the path, ignoring the voice of the zebra as she called after her.
“Stop! Do not run off with such haste! The Everfree Forest is not a safe place!”
But she ignored the warning and ran further and further in, weaving around trees and bushes and vines.
By the time she stopped and took notice of her surroundings, the sky showed night had fallen. Something about the night calmed her somewhat. However, her calm didn’t last long.
She realized she had no clue where she was or where to go. Every tree looked the same as the other in this forest and the sounds of the animals all around her filled the small alicorn with fear.
She walked over to a small indent in the ground and crawled in. She was sure it would be safe to sleep here for the night and maybe she could find her way to wherever it was she belonged tomorrow. With those thoughts in her mind, she drifted off into a restless sleep.
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For the next days, she wandered around the woods, eating roots and leaves (heaving up half of them, for they were poisonous) and drinking from a stream, sleeping under the open sky, and avoiding predators as best she could.
With each passing day, the filly grew weaker and weaker due to malnutrition, her body becoming horribly thin. More than once, she thought about whether she should have risked staying with that zebra and facing Princess Celestia. However, these thoughts were fleeting when she rememebered what Celestia would be likely to do should they ever meet and she would push on, putting more distance between herself and that zebra.
Every night she cried herself to sleep, wanting to feel the warmth of somepony holding her.
She wanted to be loved, cared for. She could not remember where this desperation for companionship came from; all she knew was that she so, so desperately wanted somepony to love her. To care for her. To be with her.
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When the night fell once again on the fifteenth day, the filly found a cave.
At first, her only thought was to use it as shelter for the night and then move on when morning came. However, she stopped when she heard a sound. It was the sound of crying, of wails.
Cautiously, the filly tiphoofed towards the mouth of the cave and looked into its interior, where a bug-like figure was mourning for its child, which lay limp in its forehooves.
Realizing her opportunity, a spell coming to her mind that she neither remembered where she’d learned it from or why, but not caring, she pretended to be more of amnesiac than she actually was and spoke.