Chapter I: Storm Warnings
The following is an excerpt from Manuscript E:
Begin Form:
Medium: Written Interview Transcript. Vocal, Face to Face.
Location: Canterlot Institution for the Betterment of Mental Health
Date: Exact date withheld, within two years of the Ponyville incident.
Obtained by: Alias “Dainty Quill”
Main Source of Collected Information: Alias “Redd”, former Ponyville resident and current suspect in the Ponyville investigation.
Further Introductory Information: Redd is a stallion who formerly resided in Ponyville, and is thought to be connected to the peculiar happenings in the Ponyville occurrence. I, Dainty Quill, am conducting and recording an interview with this stallion in order to procure information currently not known surrounding the events that occurred two years ago, in the form of a first-hoof account of the events leading up to, during, and after the incident. I currently sit in a padded room with the mentioned subject. There is a table, and he sits directly across from me. Redd is a Pegasus who, true to his alias, completely red, aside from his cobalt eyes. His mane is a darker crimson than the bright red of his coat, and he has faint crimson highlights throughout his coat and wings. His talent is marked by a blank, unrolled parchment scroll with a black feather quill. What follows in the rest of this text is a transcript of a mostly unedited interview with this rather unfortunate stallion. I have gone through and placed some comments, but for the most part, the text is untouched. I hope that the information I glean from this interview will show to be beneficial to somepony in some way.
I begin with my first question. “So, Redd, is it?”
He nods. “That is the name I prefer, yes.”
I follow with my next question. “Do you know why I’m here?”
He nods again. “You’re here to hear my story.”
I give him a smile. “Yes, that’s precisely the point. Where would you like to begin?”
He gives a sigh. “Well, I think it all started on a Wednesday. I’ve always hated Wednesdays. It was one of those days where I just didn’t want to get out of bed. In other words; a normal day. I woke up late, as usual, and stared at the ceiling. I finally got out of my bed, and slopped through my morning routine, as usual. Made some toast, showered, preened, brushed my teeth, and trotted out the door, toast firmly gripped between my teeth. I stopped short of flying to work, though. The weather was odd. When I woke up, I had thought it was a little muggy. When I stepped outside, though, I was hit by hot, humid air. Air that would make flying to work miserable. Air that had made the normally busy streets of the town mostly vacant. You see, I live… sorry, lived in my little two story right on the edge of Ponyville. I always walked down the main street to work, so I always walked through all the booths and shops. On that particular Wednesday, I walked to work, and there was little to no outside activity.
Normally I wouldn’t note the weather, but I still find the humidity and heat on that particular Wednesday interesting. The pegasi hadn’t alerted the newspaper team that there would be such miserable temperatures and what not. It was as if the weather itself was being persnickety. Anyways, when I got to The Golden Press, that’s the newspaper I worked for, I attempted to sneak around the secretary’s desk, so as not to be seen. Quillfeathers, our secretary, called me out. “Redd, you’re late.”
I gave a sigh, and made my way over to the front of the desk. “Yeah, I know.” Quillfeathers is a unicorn, has a charcoal coat, and a light gray mane. Her special talent was accounting, and she had an abacus for a cutie mark. I’ve never seen her use one though. She does it all in her head. I swear, she’s been the secretary there since the building was built. And it was probably a job she came out of retirement for. She was old.
Quillfeathers shook her head, and scribbled down a note. “Go ahead. Just don’t try to sneak in.”
I nodded in appreciation. “Thanks, Quill.”
She smiled. “Don’t mention it. I still have to tell Golden Dawn.”
Golden Dawn was my boss. She was an earth pony with a golden yellow coat and a very light mane. She was somewhat of a slave driver toward most, but she was always somewhat understanding towards me. Her talent was management, and it was represented by a lit torch. I gave another sigh. “I know.” I began to walk away, and she called me back over to the desk.
“Don’t forget your letters, Redd.” She got up out of her chair and pulled a stack of papers out of a cubby behind her desk. “Here are your questions for today. Have fun answering them all.” She pushed the stack of papers across the desk, and I gave another nod of appreciation. She looked back to her work.
I picked the stack of papers up in my mouth, and walked back to my own desk, placing the stack haphazardly next to my typewriter. I don’t think I mentioned yet what my job was at The Golden Press. I wrote an advice column. It was simple. Ponies sent me questions, and I answered them. The stack of papers I had been given by Quillfeathers were the questions I had been sent today alone. Ponies get into this, and I never really have understood it. If there’s somepony willing to answer questions, give them solutions to their problems, etcetera, they would rather have the answer given to them then figure it out themselves. I sorted through the pile, and separated out the ones I would need to get outside opinions to answer. Again, as usual. Anyways, there were many questions. The usual ones, like relationship problems, parenting dilemmas, friendship dichotomies, help fixing something around the house, needed cooking advice, the usual. Then there were the strange questions and queries, as well as occasional fan mail. These each had their own pile. I would usually go to somepony who knew something about the off questions, and sometimes the questions would get rather off-color. Those needed a letter written back, as opposed to an answer in the newspaper. One of the different questions was received on that Wednesday, and it read as follows:
Dear Redd,
Recently, weird things have been happening around my house. Books fall off the shelves on their own, I’ll turn around and things will disappear from where I place them, only to show up somewhere else. I wake up in the middle of the night with chills, and lately I’ve even had problems getting to sleep. I dream of horrid things. Sometimes I see flames and sometimes I see ponies I love dying. Sometimes I have these tremors. No, they aren’t like tremors, they’re worse than tremors. They’re these terrors. And it's like, it feels like as if somepony’s gripping my throat and squeezing. I don’t know if that means anything. I feel like somepony is watching me, always just out of my peripheral. I have a Unicorn roommate, and at first I thought it was a prank she was playing on me, but it’s been going on for about a month now. What should I do?
-Sincerely, Losing sleep.
I set this question aside. It was, as I said, different. Not like usual. It was a question I had to go to somepony else to get help answering. I had to look for advice. There seemed to be something supernatural involved, and that’s not my field of expertise. I went through the usual-type question stack, and answered each of the letters in turn.
Once I was done drafting all my responses, it was around three pm. I placed the different questions in my saddlebag, and took the answers to the rest of the questions, as well as the questions, to Quillfeathers. I clocked out and headed outside.
When I got outside, the weather and the liveliness of the streets were both back to normal. I decided I would head over to the library, and talk to Twilight Sparkle, the current librarian. Twilight Sparkle was an amazing unicorn whose special talent was magic itself. She had a lavender coat, and a straight midnight blue mane with a highlight of pink and purple. And her eyes. Her eyes were the most brilliant purple. She was simply fantastic. If I had a question, she usually had an answer and always had a book that could help. Plus, I enjoyed talking to her. I’m getting off topic. Sorry. Anyways, Twilight had moved to Ponyville almost two years prior, and had replaced the former librarian, Cheralee, who in turn went to work at the school. I don’t remember who taught at the school before that. Whatever. Like I said, I made my way to Golden Oaks Library, occasionally bumping into somepony I knew and making small talk.
When I got to the library, I noticed the windows were covered from the inside. The normally bright library looked rather dim. I grinned, shaking my head, and spoke to nopony in particular. “Twilight, Twilight. Always up to something, aren’t you.” I knocked on the door, and waited. Nothing happened, so I knocked again.
I heard muffled movement from the other side of the door, followed by Twilight’s voice. “I’m coming, I’m coming, give me a second!” The sound of numerous locks being unlocked followed, and the door opened. Standing in front of me was my favorite librarian, Twilight Sparkle. She gave me a smile. “Hi there, Redd! Come right in!” she stepped aside, and I walked into the library.
“Thanks.” I said, looking around the room. Bookshelves had been moved in front of the windows, which explained how they had been covered. There was a bookshelf over the entrance to the kitchen, as well as a violet light-shield at the bottom of the stairs, going from the floor to the ceiling. In the middle of the room, there were two couches and a table, on one of the couches lay Fluttershy, our town’s animal specialist. Quick aside about Fluttershy: Fluttershy was a mare with a light yellow coat, a light-pink flowy mane. Her talent, as I might have mentioned, was animals, and it was symbolized by three butterflies. Fluttershy was generally a shy Pegasus, unless you got to know her. Even then she was always soft-spoken and rather withdraw. She was the mare you went to if you had an animal problem of any sort, just like one would go to Twilight for a magic problem. Well… that is, if they happened to be a unicorn. Anyways, the mare lived out by the Everfree forest, in an isolated cabin. She always had animals at her cabin, like I said; animals were this mare’s thing.
Anyways, sorry about the tangent, I happen to do that a lot. On the other couch was Spike, Twilight’s number one assistant. He was a small purple baby dragon, and had a green ridge of scales along his back and across the top of his head that almost accented his otherwise purple coloration. On the table was a list of some sort, printed on a parchment scroll, which as soon as I looked directly at, rolled up on itself. I turned to the unicorn and gave her a quizzical look. “Being a bit paranoid, are we?”
She shook her head, and the door closed, latching itself as she talked. “Not at all, I feel the magnitude of the problem matches that of my solution.” The doors numerous locks finished locking themselves, and a tall bookshelf slid itself in front of the tightly locked door.
I slowly shook my head. “That’s definitely overkill.”
Twilight vehemently shook hers. “I disagree. I’m working on a project that I wish to hide from a rather receptive somepony.”
“Ok, Twilight.” I smiled again, and turned towards the center of the room. “Hi Spike. Hi Fluttershy.” I nodded to each in turn.
Spike nodded back. “Hi Redd.”
Fluttershy muttered something into the couch, and seemed to intentionally avoid eye contact.
I walked over to the couch Spike was sitting in, and sat on the floor next to it. “What were you guys doing before I so rudely interrupted?” I asked.
Twilight walked up beside me, and the scroll picked itself off the table and shoved itself between two books on a bookshelf across the room. “I might tell you in a minute. I figured we could focus on why you’re here, first.”
I gave a sigh. “Well, as usual, a question was sent in that I had no clue how to answer. I figured you could help me either answer it, or find a book that would help me answer it.”
Twilight nodded her head. “Can I read the letter?”
I drug my bag off my back, and pulled out the letter in question, the one from Losing Sleep, and hoofed it over to Twilight. The letter opened itself and hovered in front of her face. Her eyes moved back and forth as she read the letter, and once she got to the bottom of the page, they shifted back to the top, and she read it again, this time at a slower pace. The letter set itself on the table, and Twilight listed off four serial numbers for Spike, who got up and walked around the room, looking for the subsequent books. “In answer to your question, Redd.” Twilight said “I have a few books you can look at. As usual, though, I’m not going to do your work for you.”
I gave a sigh. “Ok. Help is help, after all.”
She nodded. “That it is.”
Fluttershy spoke up. And by spoke, I mean she muttered something that Twilight picked up and I didn’t. Twilight gave a nod, and the scroll from a few minutes ago appeared back on the table. “Fluttershy’s right.” Twilight acknowledged. “We can definitely use you to our advantage.”
I gave a groan. “I don’t really like the sound of that.”
“Hey,” the unicorn smirked “favor for favor, It’s how Equius works.”
She was right, and I knew it. “Ok, what do I have to do?” I said. I knew when I was beat, and around this unicorn, that was always.
Spike interrupted. “Here are the books, Twilight.” He set a pile of books between me and the unicorn, who in turn, gave a rather exasperated sigh. “What?” Spike asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. This will just have to wait a minute. Redd, see if any of these will help you.”
Spike threw his arms in the air. “I swear, it’s always something with you! I’m going to go see Rarity, maybe she needs some help.”
He walked towards the door, and Twilight rolled her eyes. “Ok, Spike. Don’t get into too much trouble.” The bookcase moved, and the door unlatched, unlocked, unbolted, and opened itself. Spike walked out the doorway.
Fluttershy got up off the couch. “I, um… Have to go f... feed Angel.” She ran out the door behind Spike, and took off into the air. The door closed and did the entire process in reverse. Lock, latch, bolt, bookcase.
The unicorn turned her attention back on me. I stared back. “Hi…” I said, attempting to break the silence.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll just check the four books out to you, you can look through them when you get back to your house. I’d like to discuss other matters with you.”
“Ok. That works, I guess.” I stuck four hardcover books in my saddlebag, two on each side, and took the saddle bag off, pushing it behind the couch. “What was on the scroll?” I asked.
A mischievous grin lit up Twilight’s face. “That doesn’t really matter, what matters is what I’m going to ask you to do.”
“And that would be?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
I shot her a flat look. “Yes, Twilight, I can keep secrets.”
Her demeanor changed, and a serious look replaced the mischievous one. “Last year, we, being my five friends and I, attempted to throw a small party for a certain… pink pony,” her eyes shifted slightly to one of the bookshelves, “a surprise party. It sort of… flopped. Sure, it was a good party, but beforehand, the mentioned mare was more than miserable.” She paused to nervously glance around the room again. It had occurred quickly to me who was talking about. Pinkie Pie, the energetic party pony, who was known by everypony in Ponyville. You couldn’t keep a secret from her, not really. One could try, but it never worked. She always kind of… bothered me, to be perfectly honest. Too happy. I still found it weird that Twilight seemed to avoid mentioning the mare directly. “But this year,” she continued “we decided that we were going to do this differently, we’d invite everypony, and go to great lengths to keep her from finding out.” She looked back at me. “But we needed somepony," she tilted her head, looking at me with more calculating eyes, and continued in a scheming tone, "to give out the invitations, and we had no idea who could do so. We couldn’t do it through the mail, because Derpy is rather close to… her. It can’t be any of her closest friends, because she would immediately catch on.” The room fell silent and Twilight's smile slowly widened, her eyes lighting up and the mischievous look yet again taking hold on her face.
“So you want me to lie to the all-knowing party-animal and pass out invitations?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it!”
I looked at the scroll on the table. “Can’t you just use your magic or something?”
She gave me one of those ‘Shut up, just do it” looks, and I gave another heavy sigh.
“Ok, fine, I’ll do it.” I conceded. I don’t like hoof work like this, lots of walking and what not. I knew I’d hate it.
“Thank you, Redd!” She threw her front legs around me in a kind-of bear hug.
“Anything for a friend” I said, and hugged her back.
And that’s how I got stuck smuggling out the invitations to Pinkie’s surprise birthday party. In my opinion, this was the beginning of the end.”
Redd shifts in his chair and sighs. “Why exactly do you say that?” I ask.
“I’ll get there, it’s a literary device called ominous foreshadowing. Anyways, I went around town pushing invitations, all the while keeping an eye out for Pinkie Pie. I didn’t run into her once, thank the princesses. Twilight had given me a different saddlebag, and I was carrying the invitations in that. I’d just left mine by the couch. This took hours. By the time dusk came around, I only had one pony left, minus the few who either weren’t home or I just couldn’t get ahold of. The last house was Zecora’s. Zecora was a zebra from another land. She always talked in rhyme and lived a decent ways inside the Everfree. For some reason, unlike most, I’ve never had a problem with going in the Everfree forest. At least, not during the day. This was a little different, the sun was in the process of dipping below the horizon.
I ventured into the Everfree cautiously, closely studying the map Twilight had given me. It would have been helpful, minus the fact that my sense of direction sucks, therefore maps have never been useful to me. And so, as my luck would have it, I eventually found myself hopelessly lost in the bowels of the Everfree Forest. Not knowing what to do, I continued forward, hoping to find a hint as to where I might be. But each tree looked the same, and they were much too dense to fly through, seeing as how bad of a flyer I am, so I looked through the bag Twilight had sent me with to see if I happened to have anything that could help me find my way. I had a few of the invitations left, a decent sized knife, an almost empty book of matches, save for 3, a small candle, and a flashlight. The only thing that was of any use to me at the time would be the newfangled flashlight, seeing as it was getting rather dark out, and the candle would just blow out in the slight breeze that seemed to consistently blow through the trees.
And so, I placed the flashlight on the ground in front of me and latched the bag shut, then pulled it back onto my back, making sure it was firmly settled. I then picked the flashlight up in my mouth and clicked it on. I still wonder how the thing works, but when I asked Twilight about it, she began talking about high grade polymers and simple capacitors with enchanted energy release. I kind of understood it, until she started talking about the magical properties and future implications such devices might have. Anyways, when I turned the flashlight on, the shadows of the trees and underbrush around me immediately seemed to distort and bend, as if following my path and reaching for me. I clicked the flashlight back off. I decided, against my better judgment, that not being able to see was better. I went to put the flashlight back in the saddle bag, and something caught my eye. I could see the moon, through the canopy.
I finished storing the flashlight, and moved towards the moon. It was a clearing, almost 30 hooves across! I was overjoyed! I could get into the air and navigate to the zebra’s hut that way.
I jumped through the bushes in front of me and readied to take to the air, when again, something caught my eye. Across the clearing from me was a pony I’d never seen before. And again, I did something against my better judgment: I approached the stranger.
The stranger was tall, and had white hooves and piano-black legs. My eyes followed the legs up to its body, which was the same dark shade of black. My eyes went no higher. “Hello?” I asked.
There was no response.
I figured, though, that even if I didn’t know the stranger, Pinkie Pie almost definitely did, and Twilight wanted me to give everypony besides Pinkie an invitation. So, I with as much gusto as I could muster, said “Hi there, stranger! I'm supposed to give everypony an invitation, so... You’re invited to a surprise party for Pinkie Pie! In case you didn't know, she's the overly energetic pink mare who usually throws all the parties in Ponyville.” I waited for a response, but I didn't get any, and so I just set the invitation on the ground in front of the stranger. “Here you go! Hope to see you there!”
I then turned back to the moon, and leapt into the air, pushing the current against my wings. I love flying, I really do. I wish I was better at it. It’s my least favorite part of being trapped in this mental facility. I don’t get to fly. My wings are even bound to my back.”
I interrupt Redd. “Anyways, you were flying above the Everfree.”
“Yes, I was. I flew above the canopy and into Princess Luna’s beautiful night sky. The stars and moon that night were breathtaking! I never get enough of it. It’s a sight I absolutely love. It’s like swimming in a sea of white fireflies. It’s simply beautiful. She must have had such fun making such a beautiful masterpiece, the sky was a canvas, and she had painted the most beautiful image for her little ponies to enjoy. If I were her, I would take such pride in my creation, I would tell all to look at its splendor.
Moving on, I eventually found Zecora’s hut, after taking in the splendor of the night. I touched down and headed towards the alcove in the trees where the zebra’s hut was located. What I saw, though, struck me as off.
I could tell from the sky that something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was until I had landed and gotten closer. It hit me very quickly. There was no fire in the zebra's hut, and the door was slightly ajar, sitting crooked on its makeshift hinges. My curiosity piqued, and I ran to the door. For the third time that night, I did something against my better judgment. I reached up a hoof and began to slowly push the door open. A crack echoed through the clearing, piercing the silence, and I froze, quickly turning around to throw frenzied glances of paranoia around the clearing.
The clearing was too dark for my comfort, and I again removed the flashlight from my saddlebag, and shined it around the surrounding area. “Hello?” I called out, but the flashlight in my mouth muffled my speech. I spit it out, and it flickered as it hit the ground. “Anypony there?” a response was not given, and if one was, I did not hear it. So I picked the flashlight back up off the ground, and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The creaking made me wince, but I forced myself to poke my head in the hut. The flashlight flickered and died before I could get a good look at the interior, but I could already tell something was wrong. I sighed, and shook the flashlight, clicking it again and again. It didn’t do a thing, didn’t respond to my frantic efforts to make it work. “The impact from dropping it must have broken it or something.” I spoke out loud, attempting to fill the deafening silence.
I again took my bag off my back and placed the apparently dysfunctional flashlight inside. And there I sat, wondering what I should do next.
Then it dawned on me. Twilight had thought this through, not to this circumstance, but she had thought farther ahead than I. I’m so glad she was the one sending me out on crazy outings. It could have been somepony with less forethought and paranoia, and could be somepony other than my favorite librarian. She gave me a backup for the new and somewhat unreliable technology that she had lent me. A candle. I pulled out the candle and matches, and set said candle on the ground in front of me. I grasped a match between my teeth and held the paper of the book over it, clasped tightly with the forefeathers of my left wing, and pulled the matchbook across the head of the match. The match flared up, and I got a dimly lit view of the one room house in front of me. I gasped. “Sweet Celestia…” The match fell out of my mouth and hit the ground, extinguishing itself.
I sat there for a minute, contemplating what I thought I had just seen. Once I was sure I was wrong, I again grasped a match and the match book. This time, when I ignited the match, I made sure to look only at the candle, and I lowered the match to the wick without glancing around the room. Once the candle was lit, I looked around the room, giving myself time to take everything in. And my, did I have a lot to take in. The scene that had lit up in front of me was a sight to behold indeed.
The floor had been cleared, and it looked like all the major furniture, as well as an overturned cauldron, had been piled up in the furthest corner of the room. The lack of possessions was not what disturbed me, though. No, the reason I note that there was so little in the cleared space is what was on every visible surface. All the cleared surfaces, the walls, the floor, etcetera, had been covered in cryptic gibberish, most of which was frighteningly illegible, and some of it even looked like cryptology or writings from a foreign tongue, which quite honestly, I wouldn’t have doubted for a second. What I could read said seemingly meaningless things like “No eyes, always watches” and “leave me alone.”
Scattered amongst these undecipherable writings, there were such strange depictions of faceless and distorted ponies sporting long slender legs and what appeared to be formal attire. It made no sense, not at the time. My mind was racing, and the candle light dancing across the walls didn’t help. I’m sure it made an eerie situation turn to the terrifying one that I remember. And what puzzled me the most was the recurring symbol that was almost made to look alive by the flickering candlelight. Like I said, that candle was playing tricks with my mind. The symbol appeared to be a frantically crossed out circle. I guess if I were to describe it in a more technical language, the symbol was a circle that had an x placed through its center, so that the x, which was slightly larger than the circle, intersected the circle’s outer edge at four relatively equidistant points. That sounds wrong. I think equidistant is the wrong word.”
Redd pauses. “Well,” I say “I’ve never been the best with Geometry, so I can’t help you there. I think I get the gist of what you’re describing, though.”
He gives a heavy sigh. “Well, I guess I’ll continue. Sorry if I bore you with my overly ornate language.”
I chuckle. “I’ve heard worse. And, yes, continuing would be productive.”
Redd smiles. “You’re right, I suppose, though how productive listening to my reminiscent banter and what not will ever be could be debated. To be clear and summative, Zecora’s hut was a frightening mess. It sent shivers up and down my spine. I blame the candle. I quickly deduced two things. One, the zebra was out of the house, and two, the zebra had gone insane. And, as I do when I usually have a problem, I decided to go to the library. Plus, I needed to return Twilight’s stuff, and get my own bag back. So Golden Oaks Library was my next destination.”
Thus ends this excerpt from Manuscript E.