//------------------------------// // Into Everfree // Story: Marks of History // by Kodeake //------------------------------// Marks of History Chapter 1 Into Everfree “You sure about this?” Thunder Blitz asked, eyes flitting between the massive trees surrounding him as he ruffled his dark grey feathers. Rising Dawn rolled her sapphire eyes, lit her horn a gentle shade of pink, the same as her coat, and pushed a particularly thick bush out of her way. “You heard what the dragon said.” “That dragon sounded more crazy than wise,” Blitz muttered, his spiky blue mane getting tangled in a low hanging branch and halting his progress into the dense foliage. With a strangled grunt he pulled himself free, staggering forward. He made it two more steps before his hoof caught on a rock and he was sent tumbling forward, taking Dawn with him to the jungle floor. “Watch it, Thunder Dunce,” Dawn grumbled, smoothing her yellow mane back into its natural, flat position. Blitz grumbled incoherently as he pulled himself back up, helping Dawn to her hooves a moment later. When they were both standing Dawn quickly resumed her trek deeper into the jungle. “What are we even looking for in this place?” He asked, following the unicorn. Sighing exasperatedly, Rising Dawn replied, “I told you this when we left to find that dragon! We're going in there and proving once and for all the ruins exist!” “Riiiight...” Blitz groaned.“So why do we care if they exist or not?” Before answering, Dawn stopped her walking and turned on her companion, glaring sharply at him and pointing to her flank. “You see this? This right here?” Blitz, rather wisely, didn't say any one of the rather perverted jokes that came to mind, instead he said, “What about it?” “Exactly! To you, or to anypony else, there's nothing missing from this picture! That's precisely what's wrong with society today; nopony cares about cutie marks. Some ponies don't even know what a cutie mark is!” Dawn shouted angrily, motioning to her blank, strawberry coloured flank for a moment longer before whipping back around. “According to the dragon this old civilization had a society built around cutie marks. I need to know more.” “Dawn, nopony's even seen a cutie mark. The only reason we think they're real at all is because of the dragon spouting his nonsense to impressionable foals like you,” Thunder argued, narrowly ducking under another branch. “It's just some old mare's tale; it's not worth coming all the way into Everfree for. Think about it; this jungle covers half the continent! Even if the rumours of the old civilization are true, there's no way we can find the right spot.” “Then how do you explain everything the dragon knows? He can accurately describe practically every event in our history books, and even some things that aren't in them!” Dawn countered. “He knows the history books because he was there; you know dragons live pretty much forever, and everything that's not in our books he made up because he's crazy!” Dawn didn't answer. Instead, she stopped her trek and looked up at what little of the sky she could see through the dense canopy of bright green leaves. “Look, if you turn back now you'll be out of the jungle by nightfall. If you don't believe in any of this, then go home; I'm going to find the ruins and figure these things out.” With that the unicorn mare started walking again, leaving Blitz behind as the pegasus contemplated going back. Back to his nice, safe cloud apartment. His soft cloud bed. His normal, everyday life. He gazed longingly in the direction he knew he should be going. Then he turned, watching as Dawn's strawberry coat was slowly engulfed by the all-consuming green foliage surrounding them. “Aw hayseed,” he muttered before sprinting to catch up, falling into pace behind Dawn, who raised an eyebrow at him. “You know the kinds of things that live in this place; I can't just leave you alone in here.” The unicorn wore a smug smirk. “Just couldn't stay away, huh?” “Shut up,” Blitz muttered, lowering his gaze, “or I will go back to my comfortable life in the city.” “Aw c'mon,” Dawn prompted with an eager smile. “Just admit it; you're as interested in this as I am.” “Not enough to skip out on working showers...” Blitz grumbled. -_-_-_- “Seriously?” Thunder Blitz asked, looking sceptically at the cave mouth before him. “Yes, seriously!” came the echoing reply from the darkened depths of the cave. “Get in here! You know how dangerous the nocturnal predators are in this jungle!” “But a cave!? Couldn't there be one of those predators sleeping in there right now?” He asked, glancing around at the darkening trees. The jungle, while dense, was normally fairly bright during the day, but as soon as the sun started setting the jungle went from bright to pitch black. Through the canopy the barest hint of the evening sky could be seen, purples and reds mixing with the blue of day and the black of night. Rising Dawn appeared back at the cave mouth with a victorious grin. “Nope; I just checked! Now get in here so I can put up the barrier,” she insisted, her horn glowing a light pink as she prepared her spell. “If you say so,” Blitz muttered before tentatively approaching and entering the cave. As soon as he was clear of the entrance Dawn's shimmering horn brightened before flashing a blinding white. When his eyes cleared he could see the result of the spell; a translucent purple sheet covered the mouth of the cave, separating it from the outside world. Taking a step back Dawn gave an approving nod to her work. “That should hold until morning as long as nothing too big tries forcing its way in. Come on; it'll be best if we're deeper in the cave where we can't be seen.” “You know, I woke up this morning in a nice, soft cloud bed,” Blitz grumbled as he followed the strawberry unicorn into the inky blackness. He glanced around himself nervously to no avail; the darkness was much too thick to see anything except the glimmer of light behind him from the entrance. The cave was cooler than the jungle had been, making the hairs on the back of Blitz's neck stand on end. Suddenly, he caught sight of something moving in the corner of his eye, making him stop abruptly and focus in on where he'd seen it. Swallowing down the anxious lump in his throat, he glared intensely into the darkness, struggling to make out what it was he'd seen move. He quickly realized he couldn't see a thing. “Hey, it'd be nice to see ya know!” He called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes away from the patch of black that had moved. A small orb of pink light appeared at the tip of Dawn's horn, illuminating a small portion of cave around them. Blitz was staring at nothing but a blank, grey stone wall. “Blitz?” Dawn asked curiously, tilting her head to the side. “I like being able to see,” he muttered, slowly turning away from the featureless wall and resuming his descent into the cave along side his companion. Dawn glanced briefly at the wall he'd been so focused on before shrugging the incident away and continuing deeper into the cavern. “Jeez you're whiny. Aren't pegasi supposed to have enhanced eyesight or something?” “Enhanced, not perfect! I can't see if it's pitch black!” Blitz shouted in frustration, his aggravated voice echoing around the empty cave as they rounded corner after corner, the tunnel beginning to twist back and forth as it burrowed deeper into the earth. “Shush! I don't know how stable these walls are and we do not need to cause a cave-in,” Dawn reprimanded quietly as they came to a stop in a slightly wider part of the cave. The entrance was nowhere to be seen, and another tunnel lead deeper into the earth at a steep angle. “We can set up for the night here.” “Whatever you say,” Blitz muttered, reaching back and taking his saddlebags off, setting them on the floor before popping the latch with his hoof. He extracted a small, hollow glass orb, rolling it across the rocky ground to Dawn. “Here, let's get some light in this place.” Dawn nodded, levitating the glass sphere up and setting it against the tip of her horn. Slowly, her strawberry coloured magic began flowing into the ball, filling it with a pink mass of swirling cloud-like magic. When it was full she set it gently on the ground, surrounding it with a few rocks so it wouldn't fall away. With a tap of her hoof, the magic activated, and the pink mist collapsed in on itself, condensing tighter and tighter until exploding a fiery orange, bathing the room in light from the miniature sun. With the new source of light the cave became visible, revealing what the shadows had hidden. They were in a circular part of the cave, roughly two ponies in diameter and three ponies tall. The walls, floor, and roof of the cave were all surprisingly smooth, indicating that an underground river had once run through it. There were two tunnels; the wide one lead to the surface, the other, narrower one lead deeper into the earth at an angle too steep to be worth climbing. Blitz reached into his saddlebags once more, extracting a tightly rolled dark blue sleeping bag. He glanced around for a moment, looking for the softest-looking patch of rock. “I did say I woke up on a cloud bed, right?” Dawn groaned quietly, having already laid out her sleeping bag on a small patch of dirt. “You agreed to come out here with me, so stop whining already.” Without a feasible comeback Blitz said nothing, instead opting to grumble to himself while begrudgingly laying out his own sleeping bag on a smooth portion of the rocky floor. “You did at least bring food and water, right?” “Of course I did, I'm not stupid. Here,” Dawn said, tossing a small plastic bowl over to her companion, filled with what he assumed to be an instant meal of some description. “I don't want to know what this is, do I?” Blitz asked fearfully, poking the edge of the bowl with his hoof and watching the semi-solid matter jiggle lightly. Dawn shrugged her shoulders. “The label said it was mashed potatoes.” “Looks more like half frozen porridge...” Blitz stuck his tongue out in the direction of the meal, sliding it away from him. “If you don't like it then don't eat it .” Dawn shrugged, levitating a spoonful of the sludge to her mouth. Her face contorted as soon as it hit her tongue and a strangled noise escaped her tightly closed lips. Blitz smirked. “Don't like it don't eat it, Dawn.” Swallowing thickly in an attempt to get the food out of her mouth, Dawn shot back, “Har har. It's not supposed to taste good; it's supposed to give us energy, something we need.” “The least they could do is make it taste good,” Blitz muttered, pulling his bowl back apprehensively and glaring at the “food” held inside. He licked it hesitantly, pulling his head back and smacking his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, that's not too bad!” “You're kidding, right? You are by far the pickiest eater I have ever met, and you like this... slop?” Dawn asked incredulously. Blitz shrugged. “I don't control what I like and don't like. It's not the best, but I've had worse.” “What could be worse than this?” Dawn asked with a doubtful expression. Blitz tapped a hoof to his chin for a moment. “Asparagus, broccoli, grapefruit... any thing you cook,” he added with a devious smirk. “Are you ever going to let that go? So I made one meal the tiniest bit radioactive, what's the big deal?” Dawn asked, throwing her hooves in the air for emphasis. “It was toast,” Blitz deadpanned. “At least I'm not the freak who likes this stuff,” Dawn muttered in response, cringing as she pulled another spoonful of the “food” out of the bowl. Blitz smile smugly, munching happily on his own meal and allowing a comfortable silence to descend upon the cave, broken only by Dawn's occasional gagging. It kept up this way until a sudden crash rung through the cave, as though a bull had run head-long into a sheet of metal. Thunder Blitz let out a surprised yelp, dropping his near-empty bowl to the floor and glancing around. “D-Dawn? What.. what was that?” The unicorn had also dropped her still mostly-full bowl, though it was not a tragic loss in her mind. She looked towards the entrance of the cave. “Something wants in...” she whispered ominously, rising to her hooves and taking a few steps towards the tunnel leading to the exit. “Hey... hey!” Blitz whispered hoarsely. “You can't go out there! Who knows what it was.” “Relax, I'm just going to make sure the barrier held,” Dawn explained, waving a hoof dismissively as she continued in the direction the noise had come from. “Dawn!” Blitz called again as he saw the last traces of her blond tail disappear into the darkness of the tunnel. “Oh for-” He stood and trotted hurriedly into the darkness after his unicorn friend. He quickly realized his mistake; without the light from Dawn's magic orb or the sun from outside, the tunnel became pitch black as soon as he turned the corner from their camp. “Dawn!?” He called quietly, spreading his wings to ensure he didn't walk into either side of the tunnel and kicking his legs out to hopefully stop himself from walking into anything.”Daw- mmph.” Blitz found a hoof shoved in his mouth. “Shush!” Dawn stressed, slowly removing her hoof from the pegasus's mouth. “Look,” she said. “At what? It's pitch black!” Blitz argued, though he kept his voice down. “Ugh... here, gimme your wing.” Blitz raised an eyebrow at the darkness in front of him where he assumed Dawn to be. Bending his wing forward, he started waving it in the air gently to see if he could feel where she was. He held in a surprised yelp as two hooves clamped down on it, guiding it over something soft. “Now, follow,” Dawn repeated as Blitz felt the thing his wing was wrapped around pull forward. A moment later he figured out what had happened and followed, his wing draped over Dawn's back as she lead him through the darkness. They rounded another corner and came to a gentle, shimmering pink light. “Well at least the barrier held,” Blitz muttered, though he was quickly shushed. The light given off of the barrier spell was enough so that Blitz could just barely make out the outline of the pony under his wing. “Look,” she stressed, motioning with a hoof towards the world outside the magic wall. After giving a quizzical glance to Dawn, Blitz obeyed and turned to the barrier, straining his eyes as best he could to look out into the darkness. He couldn't see anything; the light of the moon wasn't strong enough to pierce the thick canopy of leaves and the shield's light was less than that of a single firefly. Blitz opened his mouth to voice his answer when, suddenly, a flash of movement caught his eye and he snapped his jaw shut, focusing harder. He could just barely make out something that looked vaguely like a large wolf, a head taller than he was. Only, something was off about the shape... “Timber wolves?” He asked quietly, marvelling at the distinctly wooden shape of the wolf, small twigs jutting off the misshapen body and random bunches of branches spread across the surface. He felt Dawn nod excitedly. “Yeah, I saw two others roaming around.” “But... they went extinct thousands of years ago! How...” Blitz trailed off in aw as the wooden creature walked right up to the barrier, bathing its brown logs in a pink light. Completely made of wood with two green, glowing eyes and sharp wooden teeth, it looked every bit the hunter they were supposed to be before they died out. “Oh... I wish I had my camera...” Dawn whined quietly. “Or at least some paper to take notes. The professors at the college are not going to believe this.” Blitz was about to reply when a low, guttural growl sounded from the wooden beast staring intently into the cave. He swallowed nervously. “Dawn... can it hear us?” The pink unicorn looked over curiously. “It shouldn't be able to: The spell has a sound dampening enchantment woven in. It's not perfect, but as long as we're quiet-” she was suddenly cut off as the timber wolf barked angrily, taking another step towards the field of magic. Rising Dawn's eyes grew wide. “The barrier isn't air tight...” “W-what? What does that mean?” Blitz whispered anxiously, taking a step back while still keeping his wing around the unicorn's back. “It means...” Dawn trailed off as the two other wolves she'd seen earlier came up on either side of the one in front of the barrier. “They can smell us...” “Dawn...” Blitz took another step back. The lead timber wolf, slightly larger than the other two, reared up on its hind legs, placing its front paws against the barrier. Loosing another throaty growl, the beast opened its maw as wide as it could and tried to bite the magical shield. “It'll hold...” Dawn whispered, legs locked with fear as she stared wide-eyed at the wolves. “It has to hold...” The other two timber wolves reared up and brought their full weight crashing down on the barrier at the same time. A sickening thud echoed through the cave. Blitz's eyes widened; a small crack had appeared beneath one of the beast's mighty wooden paws. “Dawn,” he whispered more urgently as he pulled on her with a wing. “I... I can fix it,” she muttered, taking a cautious step forward and lighting her horn to fix the shield. As soon as she did her face became illuminated with a strawberry glow, and all at once the timber wolves turned their attention to her. A tense moment of silence passed, then all hell broke loose. The timber wolves, having seen their pray, redoubled their efforts with a vigour seen only in the most vicious of predators. Loud barks and growls could be heard escaping their wooden jaws as they pounded relentlessly on the shield, the small crack rapidly growing until the entire barrier was criss-crossed with a spiderweb of fractures. With a tremendous crash, the magic wall shattered and fell to the ground like broken shards of glass before dissipating into pink smoke. Without the light of the shield, the cave was bathed in an impenetrable darkness so thick the two ponies could not see the hooves in front of them, let alone each other or the three wolves. “Run!” Blitz shouted, using his wing to forcefully pull a frozen Dawn back and throwing her behind him. He heard her fall to the ground and tumble a few feet away. Spreading his wings he took an aggressive stance towards the cave entrance. The pain from crashing into the floor snapped Dawn out of her daze. “Blitz!” She shrieked, glancing around the darkness in a futile effort to catch a gimps of something. She heard another growl from the one of the wolves, a sense of dread filling her gut. She charged her horn to- “Don't you dare use magic!” She heard Blitz order roughly, somewhere in front of her. “If you do they'll see it and go for you. They may have good vision but they still need some light to see; they're as blind as us right now.” “Blitz! What are you planning?” Dawn shouted, her voice echoing around the barren walls of the cave. She squinted into the darkness, hopelessly searching for some sign of movement. The muffled thuds of wooden paws on stone started walking towards her. “They can still hear me. All I need to do is lead them out of the cave then I can fly and lure them away. So stay quiet!” His voice sounded as though it was coming from everywhere at once. The wooden creature halted its progress at the sound, leaving the cave in pitch black silence for a few seconds. “But then-” “Shush!” Blitz snapped angrily. “You got us in this mess, I'm getting us out. As soon as you hear the last one leave the cave you put up the barrier. I'll come back when I've lost them, so wait here for me.” Rising Dawn swallowed thickly. She could once again hear the muffled thud of wood striking stone from somewhere in front of her, followed shortly by a bestial growl. Before she could argue she heard the sharp clicking of hooves, the sound seeming to get farther and farther away from her. “Come on!” Blitz shouted in the darkness. “I'm right here!” An angry bark came from one of the wolves as she heard it charge after the pegasus. Dawn took a tentative step forward, preparing to light her horn and seal the entrance as she was instructed, when a pair of growls came from right in front of her. She sucked in a breath. Only one wolf had followed Blitz out of the cave; there were two left with her. “Hey! You really gonna let your dinner get away?” She heard Blitz taunt, his voice quite a distance up ahead. A large wind was blown over Dawn's body, smelling of rotten wood. It was followed by the low growl of a timber wolf not a foot away from her. Pinching her eyes shut tightly, she took a hesitant step back. “Please... go away...” she thought desperately, holding her breath and keeping as still as possible. She could practically feel the presence of the massive wolf in front of her. Another gust of wind was pushed past the unicorn, this time in the opposite direction as the wolf breathed in deeply, sniffing the air. Then it breathed out, sending the stench of decaying trees with it once again. “Where are you?” Blitz called, his voice making the timber wolf in front of Dawn pause. A bark sounded suddenly from a wolf farther away, about where she estimated Blitz to be, and she heard the one in front of her suddenly turn and run toward the mouth of the cave, followed shortly by the other one that was still nearby. “Let's go!” Blitz cried, his voice no longer echoing as he exited the cave. Dawn heard the vague sound of flapping wings before she was left with nothing but silence. Expelling the breath she forgot she'd been holding, the unicorn lit her horn and examined her surroundings. The cave was exactly as it had been when they'd entered. The wolves were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Thunder Blitz. She rushed quickly to the mouth of the cave, brightening her horn as much as she could and peering into the dark jungle. Somewhere far off in the trees she heard the rustling of bushes and the distant barks of timber wolves, but otherwise the area around her was silent. “He'll be alright,” Dawn said to herself as she took a step back into the cave, preparing the barrier spell. She felt herself shaking as the dull pink barrier blocked her off from the outside world once more. “He has to be alright...” She walked a little way back into the cave so she was no longer in the glow of her magic wall and sat back on her haunches facing the entrance. He'd be back any minute now. Any minute.