I walked, following the grey pony, half-listening and half-inspecting the… town, and I’m using the term ‘town’ loosely. There was barely any villager in it. A few of those that I’ve seen are nondescript multicolored ponies. On my shoulder, perched my familiar, taking in all the wonders, if there’s any.
For a town of multicolored ponies, it was fairly boring.
Though I managed to sense that small malicious aura around the village, it didn’t seem to be harmful… hopefully. Doubtful, considering recent events, but hey, a mage could hope right?
I briefly glanced at my apparel, I sighed. It was like any standard robe for mage. Brown, with hood, cotton, and comfortable, but that wasn’t my concern though. It was… not enchanted. I mentally fidgeted at that. It felt unsafe. It wouldn’t protect me much. A stab to the heart was enough to end my life.
The fact that I’m failure at warding or any defensive magic didn’t help either.
Sensing my distress, Nero leaned her head to the side of my head, nuzzling me. It wasn’t much, but at least the warmth helped me a little. I took a note into my head to enchant my robe later after this.
“… and here we are! At the gate of our nice town, and here’s my best friends!”
I snapped to attention. His hoof pointed at a group of ponies, smiling at me. It was almost creepy in some sense. In response, they waved at me and Greyhoof. He walked to the group, I followed. He then began pointing at the first pony.
“This is Three Leaf,” She smiled, waving at me merrily. She has green coat and a mossy green mane.
“Hello.”
I just nodded. Something about this town’s just felt uncomfortable for some reason, and Nero seemed to agree if her fidgeting was any sign.
Greyhoof pointed at another pony, this one have a brown coat with an orange mane. “This is Gladstone,”
“Hi.” He said curtly, and again, I just nodded.
Greyhoof moved to another pony, or ponies in this case, they were hugging, or at least, very close. “And this is Roneo and Starlet,” The former have a bright yellow coat and a blue mane while the latter has a white coat and an orange mane. “They’re our newest couple!” he suddenly exclaimed, earning blushes from the couple.
“Hi…” The male one greeted, holding her fore hoof slightly as his neck were nuzzled by the female one.
It felt wrong for some reason. Heck, the entire place was wrong for some reason. Few townies, while there were houses here and there. A knot dug its way into my stomach.
“Hey,” I snapped to attention to my familiar, “you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Translation: No, I’m not.
She just nodded in understanding. It took me a while to realize that during my ‘thinking’, the others were staring at me, expecting something. Now they’re just looking at me strangely.
“…what?”
They just shook their heads and shrugged, before Greyhoof suddenly said, “Well, what’s your name? You haven’t introduce yourself.” he chimed in, suddenly right on by my side. I held the urge to just burn his tail.
Returning to the problem in present, they wanted my name, eh? I don’t trust them and probably never would. Perhaps a new name… I shrugged, while mentally smirking, “Name’s Psyche.” I nodded curtly. An old moniker of mine, now though, it was Blood fire, Soul eater, Oblivion, Soul stealer, Doom, and ironically, the Reaper. The imperials and bounty hunters were really desperate to give me names, the scarier the better, and even though I have many spells in my artillery, they chose the most common one.
True, it was my favorite, but still…
I blamed those names from stupid, racist, and genocidal Imperials. If I could, I would kill them all. I shook that thought away. Looking around, only to see none other than Greyhoof, wherever the others went was unknown.
“Oh, we’re going to have fun! We’re going to make a party for you! You can wander off now, but be back at sunset,” He walked away, before turning back, I swore I could see red in his eyes, even for a brief moment. Perhaps a discussion with Nero will be of importance. “And don’t go deep into the forest in the back of the town, its dangerous!” He shouted, before walking away.
A warning, eh? I turned away, looking the deeper part of the town. You don’t simply warn a curious mage, and I would like to get rid of these knots in my stomach as soon as possible. And my guts told me to go to the forest.
So I walked into the deeper part of the town, hand reaching down to grab a simple breakfast—
“Hey…” a voice whispered, I narrowed my eyes, looking for the source, and thankfully, Nero helped with just that. Pointing at a nondescript wooden house, or specifically at the barred wooden window. “Please, come here!” the voice – a she – half whispered, half hissed and a small tone of pleading in them.
I noted the worried look Nero had. And walked closer to the house, or more specifically the barred window; I glanced down, surprised. Seeing another pony, a female, so… a mare? I looked inside… she was locked?
Huh.
Her forelegs grabbed the pillars of the bar, “I don’t know what you are, but you must go, run from this town! Please, you don’t belong here.” She whispered, tone filled with pleading, and tears began to from in the corner of her eye.
I turned, ignoring the surprised look from her, and walked away. Completely ignoring the warning and delved deeper into the town. My curiosity got the best of me. And besides, mystery are meant to be solved, not the opposite.
As I walked, I listed my curiosity as another aspect in myself that would be the death of me, and reached a canned beef from my bag, warming it with a quick fire spell, opened it, and ate it with Nero almost absent-mindedly, pondering my poor fate so far. The fact that, I somehow in a village of a, possibly, new race didn’t bother me as much as it should.
The fact that they didn’t want to kill me helped too.
I stopped to a halt, throwing the can away, because fuck tree-huggers and stared at the other end of the town, a forest.
Nero groaned and I sighed.
“It’s official. I hate forests.”
"Don't we all?". I shrugged, walking into the forest. Mysteries are mystery after all. Considering the panicked look of the red maned mare; it wasn’t a small mystery too. And I just hoped it would be worth it.
I turned left, ignoring the withering trees and the red eyes beyond the trees, and looked at my robe again. I sighed, “I’m seriously considering enchanting all of my apparels after this is done… hopefully alive too, and also practicing my soul magic,” I flexed my arms, groaning as it popped, “I’m not even a master yet.”
I looked straight at me, and quickly halted. “That was quik than I thought it would be,”
“Well, there was a road for some reason,” Nero said, adding an eye roll.
I shrugged, not too concerned, “Well, the sooner my curiosity is fulfilled the better.”
In front of me was… a building, it was probably used to be the town hall. Now that I thought about it, there wasn’t any town hall in the town. The old woods were dark, already rotting to the point of almost crumbling. The windows full dusts, cracks were common on the woods and a well right by my side.
I shrugged, and walked to door, grabbing the… doorknob? I furrowed my eyebrows... how do these ponies use doorknobs? Waving away the question, I turned it around, and sighed. Locked. Of course.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my lock pick kit from it, opening it and quickly unlocking the door. A click later, it was unlocked. Thanking the decision to pick the skill for robbing houses. I opened it. The hinge creaked like a woman screaming just right after her hymen was broke, and let myself in the town hall.
I closed my eyes, coughing the dusts away, the same gesture that was copied by my adorable familiar, before opening my eyes… and quickly closed it again. I sighed. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“… N-n-no, Are you?”
My eyes snapped open at the young high-pitched voice, causing the yellow orbs to jump away from me, that was accompanied by a squeak of surprise. I closed the door, staring at the, almost, transparent and terrified, figure in front of me.
Her, if my ears were right, forelegs covered her eyes, as if afraid that I was going to do something. I ignored the guilty feeling in my stomach at the quivering pony ghost, and asked, “Are you going to hurt me, or her?” nodding to the Nero who sat perched on my shoulder, her sharp golden irises glaring at the floating figure.
The ghost’s forelegs quickly snapped away from her eyes, revealing bright yellow orbs called eyes. She was small, smaller than the ones from earlier. A foal. A filly to be precise.
“What?! No!” She answered, sounding surprised at my implication.
“Well, that’s new, a ghost that doesn’t want to hurt me,” I looked at Nero, eyes crinkling with amusement, “at least that’s a plus right?”
“Yes, indeed it is.”
I ignored the strange look I got from the ghost, and stared at her, “So what’s your name?”
“What?” was her smart answer.
“Name, you know, like John, Black, Shit, Fuckface, Dickface, Fuck-me-please-I-want-your-cock?”
“Oh…” She scratched her hooves in, a nervous tick if I ever saw one; “Ruby…” her answer was so small that I had to strain to hear it right. That done, I took sight of the room; I noticed that it was almost vacant, a podium right in the side of the room, a pile of bones on it. A few windows covered dusts, and a cabinet in the corner of the room.
I walked to the podium, looking at the bones with morbid curiosity. It certainly wasn’t human, in fact, it was probably a pony. I turned to the fidgeting ghost, “That yours?”
“Y-Yes?”
I frowned, a podium with bones on top of it. It didn’t take long to figure out what happened in here. I sighed, sitting on the podium, right next to the old dried bones. I patted the floor just next to my side whilst looking to the ghost.
She nodded tentatively and floated next to me, all the while taking interests at the totally not sexy rotten wall, and took a sit, which was still floating right above her bones, by my side.
“So, what’s the story?” I asked, after few minutes of silence. By that time, Nero had jumped from my shoulder onto my lap. My hand petting her comfortingly, absent-mindedly noting that she needed to perch on my shoulder less and start walking by her own or that fat won’t go away.
She fidgeted a little at the question, before finally slumping in resignation… “It was because of… this,” she pointed the mark on her butt, a magnifier glass, “Long time ago, I didn’t remember how long, there’s this plague you know, called the Cutie Pox…” I almost snorted but immediately held it. Her voice was solemn, filled with sadness, her eyes dimmed slightly, “I don’t remember how it happened, but it was caused when our Cutie mark would be added every time, and then we’re forced to do things our cutie marks said do,”
“What’s a ‘Cutie’ mark?” It was hard just not to laugh at the name, but the situation wasn’t fit for such thing, so I curbed it down.
She looked at me strangely before shrugging, “It’s our talent you see, things you do best, mine a magnifier glass, I’m good at looking things,” She took a deep breath, “anyway, we took shelter in here, deep within the Everfree forest,” I felt my eyes widened for a second before it returned to its original size. Of course, why not? Same goddamn forest, sure explain why I hate this particular forest, “It was fine...” I could sense she was holding her own feeling, straining her voice, “until this,” pointing at her mark, “happened. I was good at finding things, ponies thought it was the pox… and they—they-“ Her eyes clenched shut, tears on the edges of those eyes as she sobbed and hiccupped.
I, unconsciously, and slowly curled my arm around her, surprising myself when it touched, giving my robe a strange look before my eyes widened in realization.
Memories of young, stupid me came unbidden, using my prodigial rune abilities and knowledge so that I could touch ghosts, thinking that it would be a good idea. It wasn’t, and soon replicated the same runes onto this robe. It was the same base with my glove.
She quickly leant to my arm, using it to cover her crying eyes. My eyes softened. Another victim of ignorance, the same with the Imperials and mages, where the Imperials would chase any mages down and burn them on stakes because they’re just demon spawns, who deserved to be killed and also because the ability of mages insults their ‘One and only’ God.
Her sobbing quickly become a cry as she leant harder onto my arm. My other arm reached for her back, calming her down, and guiding her onto my lap. My familiar thankfully understood and leapt of from my lap. My other arm petting her calmly.
I waited until she was done exhausting her emotion. She was young, too young; probably she still couldn’t read perfectly. I chuckled at that thought; I sounded old, even though I was still in my twenties.
“Do you want to hear a joke?” I said light-heartedly, I felt her nod under on my arms. “A mage, a familiar and a ghost walked into a bar…”