//------------------------------// // Meetings and Adventure // Story: Knights of the Everfree // by Lightning Shaker //------------------------------// Knights of the Everfree Chapter One: The two friends made their way to the market square of Ponyville to pick up some supplies to take, which mostly consisted of some apples and a couple bottles of apple juice from the stall with the intimidating-looking colt that was bigger than other ponies their age. Lightning figured he’d be a giant by the time he was full grown; what made it worse was he already had his cutie mark. The main shopping square of Ponyville seemed to always have its goings on for most of the day. Somepony or another was always coming or going, the occasional sale creating what to Lightning was a mad panic to buy something before it ran out. Today seemed to be no exception as it was a rather nice day, the few clouds not managing to dampen the bright sunny sky. He thought it would be a great day for catching a nap on a cloud… then remembered he had been before he was so rudely awakened from such an awesome dream. Supplies in hand, Lightning Shaker and Dream Dasher set out for the Everfree forest. This wouldn’t be the first time they had gone to the dark – and often dangerous – forest, which the older ponies would undoubtedly scold them again. The colts were often in trouble for doing things they shouldn’t, but this rarely stopped them. As they walked, Dream Dasher began pondering what they would find. “I bet there’ll be lots of treasure there! Something so great we’ll have enough bits to build our own house here in Ponyville.” Lightning chuckled and shook his head, knowing the odds of them finding treasure in those ruins were very slim, as they had likely been searched by somepony else. But it’d be fun either way. Dream Dasher noticed Lightning chuckling and gave him a shove. “At least I’m tough, what are you going to do in there if something goes bad? Fly away?” Lightning smiled proudly. “Me, a royal knight, flying away from danger? As if, Dash. I think you’ll be surprised at what I can do in a fight.” The red colt grinned. “Prove it.” The two colts often challenged each other, usually ending in disaster due to each having an inability to back down. “Alright, I will!” Lightning dashed up into the sky as he slammed into one cloud,then bucked another, making them break apart. As he moved to a third, he heard giggling coming from the nearby pond. Distracted, he landed on the next could rather than demolishing it, and peered down at the noise, ignoring his friend’s jab about how amazing that display was. He saw a young filly, her white coat and pink mane shining in the mid-morning sun. She was obviously a Unicorn and easily the prettiest thing Lightning had ever seen. Summoning all his courage, he flew up and then darted down to land a bit behind her; he knew he had to talk to her. But now that he was this close, Lightning started to freeze up. What if she laughed at him, or thought he was dumb? What if he didn’t know what to say to her? He’d never really talked to any of the fillies before. He stood there staring dumbly at her, afraid to move, afraid she’d hear his heart beating in his chest; it seemed so loud to him. “Hey Lightning what are you doing over here?” The worst possible person to come looking for him had chosen the worst possible time. The young Unicorn turned to look at them shocked that someone had come sneaking up behind her. She shrank away from the two colts taking a couple steps back towards the pond. “Who’s this?” Dream Dasher asked, looking at the new pony. “Is she some kind of nerd or something?” He asked as he took in her glasses and freckles. “I’m sorry, who are you?” She took another step back. “Don’t scare her, Dash.” Lightning said, having finally found his voice. “Hey, I was just asking,” the Earth pony said with a shrug, losing interest in what was going on. “We need to get going, though; remember, we have that thing to do.” The Pegasus looked a little embarrassed as he had actually forgotten. “I’m sorry if we startled you.” He said as he started walking off. “Wait, what’s your name?” The young Unicorn asked, having moved several steps forward. “Oh, umm, my name is Lightning Shaker. What’s yours?” “I’m Rare Charmer.” The smile she gave warmed Lightning, his mind losing focus again. “Hey, you want to come with us? We’re going exploring in the Everfree forest.” Dream Dasher glared at him sideways. “Did… did you really just tell her we were going to the forest? Man, I think you’re trying to get us in trouble with our guardians.” Lightning looked sheepish as he was being admonished by the Earth pony. Rare Charmer looked confused. “Guardians?” “Oh, uh, we don’t have parents, just ponies who are responsible for us.” The blue Pegasus said, feeling even more awkward. “Look, if she wants to come along, let her; but we need to go or it’ll start getting too late and dark.It’s hard to see in the forest when it’s dark out.” Lightning looked at Rare questioningly with some hope in his eyes. “Do you want to come? It’s going to be fun.” She thought for a moment, unsure about the two colts but curious about going in to the Everfree forest as she’d always been told not to go there. “Okay, I’ll go.Sounds like fun!” The three ponies – two colts and one filly – made their way through the outskirts of town until they arrived at the edge of the Everfree forest, being careful to not be seen as they left town. “This is really dangerous, are you sure we should do this?” Rare Charmer asked, looking a little shaken at the sight of the forest. “Yeah, we do this all the time,” Dream Dasher told her confidently. “Lightning and I are going to be knights one day.” The filly looked doubtful, but seemed to be reassured that things would go well. “Don’t worry; I will make sure you are safe.” Lightning tried his best to look at least a little bigger than he was to show her he could protect her. She smiled at Lightning and he felt as though his heart would stop. The three ponies entered the forest, the narrow path they were on was hard to see with so much brush overgrowth and the forest canopy really did make things so much darker. Lightning was happy because Rare was staying close to him; he had never liked fillies before, but she created a spark inside him. Lightning had always wanted to be a knight in service to the princess, but now he felt it meant something else, now he felt he could be a brave knight to always be there to protect her. “I think Cloudy said it was this way.” The Earth pony said looking down an even darker and narrower trail off to the left. They all looked at the path, it was clearly too narrow for any of the ponies to walk side by side. “Are you sure, Dash? I can’t see much here, but that path looks like a bad one… What if we get all the way down there and it’s a dead end?” Dream Dasher rolled his eyes, and pointed a hoof at the path. “We can see the path; it has to go somewhere, right? I’m pretty sure Cloudy said it was only this far in.” The forest was already gloomy, and it only got worse down the trail. Lightning noticed Rare was shaking, but when he asked, she simply smiled and said she was okay. With a twinge of worry, he elected to go in first, asking Dash to take up the rear so she would have someone on either side of her. His concerns weren’t for nothing; they had on more than one occasion run into dangerous creatures in the forest, and while they knew how to deal with these situations, Lightning was sure she didn’t. As they walked down the narrow path Lightning figured he’d liven up the mood a bit with some small talk, mostly reminiscing about some of the things they had found in the forest. Like the one time they had encountered a strange striped pony who spoke in rhymes. Rare giggled at the description, she liked the stories, having never heard of some of the things the two colts were telling her of, but that wasn’t too much of a surprise as the Everfree forest was a strange place that no pony had really explored. Some even said that the animals here tended to themselves, and the weather happened all on its own. The three talked and laughed for several minutes, not noticing the dark things that watched them from the trees...