A soft breeze swept over Raritys sleeping form, the soothing chill of morning air elicited stirring from beneath her brown canvas blanket, she pulled her hooves in tight to her chest and buried her face into the rough material, trying in vain to capture what little warmth she could under her measly sheets, her eyelids fluttered open reluctantly, Revealing deep sapphire blue eyes that pointed upwards looking towards the sky. To her surprise her sleepy eyes were not met with the harsh rays of sunlight this morning, the sun had yet to creep above the the tree line of the clearing and the sky was awash with an unbroken canvas of pale blue, Rarity smiled, it was a lovely morning.
Flashes of pain broke Raritys peaceful demeanour as she slowly pulled herself up, her muscles felt stiff and whilst they hurt considerably less than the night prior, she still had lasting aches and pains here and there the worst of which came from her broken leg. She rested her back against the stone that had served as her pillow, Rarity craned her neck from side to side, visibly cringing at the pops and cracks that sounded off as she worked the muscle. She stretched out her good limbs, even after all these months of the same morning routine she couldn't say whether she was doing it right or not or if it even helped at all, she wished she'd paid more attention to Rainbow Dash's ramblings about sport and exercise.
Her expression deflated as the thought of her friend entered her mind, a flood of past moments crawled through her mind, each one rattling her resolve and pushing her closer to breaking, trying to coax the reluctant mare to her spa trips, their light and friendly back and forth teasing, being saved from becoming a red stain on the floor of Equestria in a blur of wind and colour. Rarity found herself remembering pointless things since she'd began her trek north, things that had gone unnoticed before, filed away into her subconscious to be pulled up and examined during these lonely days, the shape of her eyes, the way her mane fell into a prismatic mess, the tone and curve of her muscles,the scratching rasp that flavoured her words, too often she found her brain replaying old memories, focusing on the minute details that made her friends whole beings, details she'd never considered important before, perhaps to try and preserve her friends in every possible way, or perhaps the loneliness was driving her mad.
Rarity dabbed at her wetting eyes with her good hoof, she shook her head and let out a pained sigh, it was better to block the out the ghosts of the past than to let them haunt the future she pondered. Her focus shifted towards her bandaged hoof, a darker brown had spread among the makeshift bandage and she could feel it sticking to her beneath, she noted with surprise that it seemed to have bled much less than she'd anticipated, no doubt due to the magic waters she'd soaked the bandage in. A shimmering blue enveloped the canvas material as Rarity slowly peeled it from her hoof, she grimaced as strands of fur were harshly plucked from her leg, her expression soured once the ghastly wound was revealed the torn flesh was tinted a soft pink leading down into deep crimson that made Raritys stomach churn.
She hobbled over to the pool, being careful to avoid putting any weight on her broken leg, Rarity flopped down before the still water, placing her injured leg into the the pool with a wince as the cool liquid flushed into her open wound. Once again she watched on quizzically as the blood and bile was swept from the cut, the thick red cloud sinking away beneath the pebbles to some unknown place, not a trace of red left behind in it's stead. She levitated the bloodied rag over, submerging it in the water and pulling it about, staring intently as the blood, sweat, dirt and whatever else had dirtied the former pillow was pulled off and cast away. Rarity removed the dripping rag from the pool, pulling and tieing until she was content once again with the sling she'd made.
The first rays of sunlight crept over the tree line, lucid beams of golden light touched Raritys fur, warming her and renewing a sense of old comfort, she sat silently as the sun continued it's slow ascension into the clear blue sky. Inch by inch the clearing became bathed in a soft golden hue, the silence of the forest was broken by the tweets and chirps of bird as they bid one another good morning. Rarity sat in silence, her eyes fluttered closed and her ears twitched as her other senses began to take over, she could hear the sounds of the birds but they felt strangely distant as though they were suddenly much further away.
She could feel some faint magic tugging at her, she'd been exposed to different types of magic during her time but she couldn't recall one that felt quite like this and even with her weak perception of such things she could still feel that it bubbled with old and powerful energy. Rarity felt a low hum travel down the length of her horn that spread about the rest of her body, her features scrunched in struggle against the faint buzz of energy that throbbed inside her, it was an odd feeling that Rarity couldn't quite understand, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, powerful yet somewhat sickly.
Rarity could feel another sense awakening, one that she'd not used in a long time and, admittedly, had little control over, she could feel her minds eye slowly creep open, urged on by the ancient power of this place to look beyond the physical world and stare into the magic that remained hidden from normal eyes and whilst her perception of it might be weaker than that of other unicorns it didn't seem to matter in this place. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she turned her head towards the pool, she could see the magic that emitted from it now, a great beam of white light that seemed to rise forever upward, piercing the sky above like a furious beacon blaring into the empty void, the floor of the clearing was awash with wandering trails of interlacing light that fluttered in a non existent breeze and travelled the space with no cause or pattern.
The small boulders that had sat just at the edge of the parting trees where now awash with strange markings that Rarity couldn't place into any alphabet she recognised, each stone featured a unique marking but they all burned the same hot white, it came to her that she could see very little else, the blue sky above was gone, as was the ground beneath her feet and the surrounding woodland was nowhere to be seen, all were replaced by an endless expanse of black. Rarity stood up and took a cautious hood towards the pool but suddenly felt as though she was being dragged upward at an alarming rate the urge to scream reached her lips but she quickly felt the panic leave her mind, her rapid ascent came to an even quicker halt and she found herself suspended motionless in the black void far above Equestria, she looked down, even now she could see the clearing, burning a hot white like a distant star amid a vast swirling darkness, alone like a solitary island standing firm against a raging ocean.
Rarity span in place as she looked all around her, across the expanse of Equestria lines of glowing colour spread across different part of the lands like vines creeping through a garden, In places they glowed red or blue, in others they were green and in some pockets here and there Rarity could make out hundreds of different colours all bunched together and moving like droplets or rain blown from a window. In some places the same swirling darkness beneath her was all that could be seen and far to the north she could see another beam of light, not unlike the one emitted from the pool, it shone a glorious pink, but seemed weaker and faltered here and there , Rarity found herself oddly transfixed by the wavering light.
Suddenly she found herself plummeting out of her suspension, hurtling towards earth like a lead balloon dropped from the clouds the urge to scream once again reached her lips and nothing suppressed it this time as she tumbled through the dark skies, inching closer and closer to the burning white light, Rarity hopelessly lifted her hooves to her face moments before impact and for a second, all she could see was darkness. Raritys eyes shot wide open as rasping, panicked breaths escaped her, she looked around frantically, no beam of light, no swirling darkness, no great mesh of glowing colour, just the same green clearing she had been in moments ago, a long sigh of relief, tinged with annoyance, emitted from her and the energy that had been buzzing throughout her had all but subsided.
“I swear, I'm quite sick of all the surrounding me lately” she spoke allowed to herself in a irritated tone.
“No time to dwell on it now, there's things to prepare Rarity” she muttered, shaking her head and getting to her hooves. She turned her focus to her bags and fired up her horn, for a moment Rarity felt cautious that using her magic might somehow trigger another magic based hallucination but her horn seemed to work just as it always had. Popping open her saddlebags she rummaged around until her magic felt the wooden handle of the hatchet, gripping it in her aura she pulled it from her bag and made her way to the tree line, she expected she'd a lot of wood for the following nights.
The hacking of wood split the air as Rarity brought her hatchet down on another branch scattering splinters into the foliage below, another swing brought the thick branch crashing to the ground with thud If they wanted to kill me last night, I doubt they will be anymore pleased with me after this Rarity thought to herself , wrapping her magic around the fallen log and levitating it over to the rest of her bundle, a film of sweat coated her forehead which she promptly wiped away, it had been a good hour of collecting enough wood to make camp in the forest if she absolutely had to, but she lamented that the bundle would only make her already weighty load even heavier which in turn was made more difficult with only three working limbs, never the less it was time to start moving again.
She had constructed a makeshift crutch for herself using a few sticks and yet more bedsheets, not to mention she'd had to sacrifice more to bundle all the logs together, she really should have invested in some ropes. Rarity sighed, at this rate she'd be left with nothing to sleep under except the stars, she began her marginally faster hobble back to the pool but found her attention quickly drawn away to a small boulder resting by the foot of one the trees that sat at the threshold into the clearing, the boulder was completely run of the mill, grey, jagged and completely uninteresting, all apart from the strange marking that was carved into it's surface. Rarity leaned in to get a closer look at the carving, it was made up of a straight line and a connecting line that shot down diagonally, two dots were carved vertically beneath the diagonal line.
It was one of many that Rarity had seen only recently, except now she felt no magical power emit from the strange mark, she pondered it and the other carvings meanings, perhaps they belonged to some old and forgotten magical alphabet or were ancient runes form a civilisation long past, perhaps she'd never know but she certainly wouldn't learn of their meaning, or the meaning behind her hallucination from standing here. She brushed her hoof along the carving before getting to her feet and trotting, if it could be called that, back to the pool. She gave a glance to the pool, she almost felt sad to leave this place, this oasis of calm surrounded by a world plunged into madness but there was nothing to be done about it, she had somewhere to be and she didn't have time to waste, her horn became engulfed in blue light as she plucked one of the pebbles from the pool, no reason she couldn't keep a memento of this magical place, Rarity placed the bundle by the rest of her belongings and began getting ready for the days travelling.
The process of getting her armour on had been surprisingly more difficult than she'd first anticipated with her broken leg, but with a lot of squirming, fidgeting and perhaps a small amount of whining, she had finally managed it. With slow care she placed her sword down the length of her back, releasing the weapon from the grip of her magic she felt all it's weight at once, her crutch wobbled and she had to fight to steady herself from falling, once she'd regained her footing she made sure to strap the weapon in place tight, she looked to the bundle of wood and fired up her horn carefully levitating the bundle so it sat atop the sword she pulled the strips of cloth around her belly and tied them in the strongest knot she could, she hoped they'd stay firm for the days travel. She took a few wary steps forwards, the weight the logs added was definitely considerable and it would take some of getting used to before she could properly walk with her crutch, even now she was already panting due to the weight led across her back
“Come on now Rarity” She muttered to herself through gritted teeth “It's time to pony up” with that she mustered whatever strength she could from her healthy legs and approached the forest with determined strides, her resolve was quickly diminished when she found herself staring into the darkened woods before her. She gulped as the events of still warm memories of last nights horrible events entered her mind, the awful screaming and pounding of hooves seemed to ring in her ears. She swallowed hard and looked on at the woods with a cold glare, she'd overcome many an obstacle already and she wasn't about to let some ghost in the woods stops her, it wasn't like she could rightly just stay in this clearing forever either, she took a swig from her canteen. The pristine waters once again aided in calming her nerves, her resolve restored Rarity stepped over the threshold and began again her journey through this cursed forest.