Light continued to fade as night’s cycle approached the new moon. Between the slimming of the moon and the skeletal branches shading the barren forest floor, a near perfect dark surrounded the path they walked. Were it not for their torches, they would be blind. Even with them, the dark seemed to swallow their firelight with a feverish hunger.
The earth beneath their hooves was packed and frigid, more resembling stone or concrete than dirt. Its dead greyish hue did little to help the comparison. Yet still, roots breached its surface and the pale trees filled the forest as densely as any jungle.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash followed Pinkie Pie, who for the last hour had led them through the seemingly endless and unchanging forest. Every so often she would stop, stare at their surroundings, and change their course.
"We’re walking in circles," Rainbow Dash said, fed up after the dozenth or so such case. "We’re lost, aren’t we?"
Pinkie Pie glanced back at the two of them and smiled. "Nope! We’re following a path."
"We’ve turned around in a full three hundred sixty degrees over the past ten minutes, maybe more. How is that not walking in circles?" Rainbow Dash caught Twilight staring at her. "What?"
"Have you not felt the dark?" Twilight asked.
"What do you mean, ‘felt it’?"
Twilight gestured with a nod behind them. "Look."
Behind them, their torchlight fell off into darkness, but for the first time, Rainbow Dash noticed the darkness was not still. It swam and circled around them like a thousand swarming eels. Every so often a part of it would dart out into the light, before being shunned away by it.
Ice trailed its way up Rainbow Dash’s spine, her breath quickening. Eyes darting around, she now noticed it all: everywhere around them the darkness thrashed. Blood pounded in her ears and she heard a terrible shriek that came from all directions at once.
Then it all vanished. There was a hoof on her shoulder. Twilight’s. She looked up and met Twilight’s eyes, and for a moment every fibre of her being stood still as if under a spell.
Then Twilight spoke. "Breathe."
Rainbow Dash did. Her chest moved, and she gulped in air. With the first movement the rest of the spell broke. The chill receded from her spine, and she could once again move her limbs.
"W-what was that?" she asked.
"The Miasma," Twilight answered. "Otherwise known as the Dark. It’s a magic as ancient as it is vile. Its spread is what has been steadily wiping ponies from this land over the past thousand years, and it’s what originally made the pegasi retreat to their clouds."
"But I’ve never seen or heard of it like this."
"Well, you know. Some places are darker than others," Pinkie Pie said, butting in. "The Everfree forest is one of the darkest. That’s why we haven’t been walking in a straight path, because some places are too dark—even for these torches, so you’ve got to tiptoe around them. As far as walking in circles goes, well, as you can now probably see, the darkness moves."
Rainbow Dash glanced back at the darkness. It was still thrashing and boring into the light. Horn glowing, Twilight’s torch grew brighter. The tendrils coiled away from the increased brightness as if burned.
Twilight looked between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. "Don’t stray too far from me. If the torches go out, my pyromancy will be the only thing that can save us. In the event of that happening, we’ll have to move fast."
Pinkie Pie gave her a wide grin and nodded, but Rainbow Dash still struggled to speak.
As Pinkie Pie glanced around again, her smile faded. "We should keep going. The dark is always moving."
As Pinkie Pie started forward, so too did Twilight. Rainbow Dash snapped to her wits, raising her torch. Her other hoof ached from walking so long on three legs, but she wasn’t about to be left behind. Not after what she had just seen.
They walked for another hour in silence. Rainbow Dash found herself glancing up at the spider’s web of branches. Thin, pale things though they were, little to no moonlight slipped through them. Whatever did was quickly swallowed by the forest. It made it feel as though the forest was a prison, the branches its bars, and the light which it swallowed its prisoner.
Eventually they came to a crevasse, the depth of which they couldn’t begin to guess. They crossed by a giant fallen palewood whose trunk reached from one side to the other.
There they were, in front of a perfectly circular hut whose thatching seemed to be made of the thinner branches from the trees around it, for above it lay a gap through which the light of the moon poured.
Pinkie Pie walked over to its door, sat, and extended her hoof out towards it. "May I present to you, ponies of the sky and ground, the home of the White Witch!"
The door opened. Out stepped a zebra, her coat as pale as the moon and her stripes a faded gray. Her mane fell down, long and unkempt, around her shoulders, while her neck and left hoof were surrounded by several rings of silver.
She turned to Pinkie Pie and glared. "I have told you not to call me that. I do not appreciate being jest at."
Pinkie Pie covered up a giggle. "Sorry."
Zecora huffed. She turned back to Twilight and Rainbow Dash, arching a brow at them. "And what are these? Why have you brought along two ponies?"
"I’m trying to find my friends," Rainbow Dash said, stepping forward. "Two of them. We got separated a while back. I was told you could help me find them."
"That I might be able to do, but it would dependent upon you." Zecora walked up to Rainbow Dash and began examining her. "Do you have some of their skin? Their blood? Their hair?"
"What? No, I don’t."
Zecora stepped back. "Then I’m afraid I cannot help you there. For at least one of these things would be needed if I were to find where your friends have proceeded."
Rainbow Dash’s ears drooped. "You don’t have any sort of magic that could help?"
"I’m afraid if I’m to divine their location, I would require the aid of a certain libation. That is to say, if I become far-seeing, I must drink of a potion made from their being."
Rainbow Dash hung her head. She could feel a stinging in the corners of her eyes. "So… that’s it then, I guess. Back to square one."
"We should head back to Ponyville," Twilight said. "Figure out where to go next from there."
Zecora brought a hoof to her chin. She stared at Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze lingered on Twilight. "Why don’t the three of you come inside? There may be some help I can give offering my services as a guide."
Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up. She raised her head. "Really?"
"I know the forests around here to each and every tree." Zecora opened the door to her hut and paused in the archway, glancing back at the three of them. "You’re welcome to stay and warm yourselves while I prepare a fresh pot of tea."
Pinkie Pie accepted the offer and stepped inside. While Zecora went into the back of the hut, she stopped in the doorway and held it, looking back at Rainbow and Twilight.
"Zecora might not be able to whip up some cure-all for your problems," Pinkie Pie said. "But she knows this area better than anypony. You should try telling her your story; she might still be able to help."
Rainbow Dash and Twilight glanced at one another.
Rainbow shrugged. "It’s worth a shot, right?"
Twilight nodded, her mouth set in a grim line.
"What?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Nothing," Twilight replied. "Let’s head inside."
The interior of Zecora’s hut was lit by a green flame that sat in a fire pit in the center of the hut’s only room. Over the green flame hung a black cauldron filled with boiling water. Books, potions, and ingredients of every color and shape filled the shelves lining the walls.
Zecora lifted the cauldron off the fire by its handle and laid it on a flat stone to one side of the room. Using a cloth, she tipped the water out of to fill a scratched-up kettle, which she then set aside to steep.
"Now then," she said, joining the rest of them. "For what happened to your group I am most sorry, but if I’m to help you find them, then I must hear your story."
"It was my first time down to the surface," Rainbow Dash began. "Since I was a rookie, it was just supposed to be a day trip. A couple hours, maybe more. We walked through a rocky area containing lots of caves filled with white-capped mushrooms. We were picking the mushrooms from the caves to take back to Cloudsdale, each of us taking separate caves, when I walked into the wrong one.
"I guess I was in the deep end of the cave when I first heard it move. I remember turning around and seeing its eyes glowing in the dark—but I didn’t realize they were eyes at first. I’d never seen anything so big.
"Once I heard it growl, I realized the danger I was in. I ran and flew straight for the exit. With how dark the cave was, I never saw its claws. One moment I was in the air, soaring towards the light at the mouth of the cave, the next I was tilting out of control."
Rainbow Dash hesitated briefly before holding out her wing, showing the diagonal cut that had stripped the wing of almost half its feathers. It looked to have just missed the wing itself. Pinkie Pie gasped and covered her mouth.
"So that’s when this happened," Rainbow Dash said. She frowned at her injured wing and folded it back away. "I managed to crash land outside the cave. Spitfire and Soarin must have heard my shout from just before I hit the dirt or something, because they were at my side the next instant."
Rainbow Dash rubbed her shoulder as she let out a shudder. "Then the darkened manticore stepped outside. Its skin was black and burnt and rough as leather. It was huge—bigger even than the monsters in the stories my mom read to me as a filly. And its eyes were all pale and white and not the slightest bit happy to see us.
"Spitfire took charge and led the way as we ran. Soarin flew around the manticore, jabbing it with his spear, trying to distract it, but his spear couldn’t pierce its hide, and I think it knew I was weakened, because it just kept coming after me. We ran from it for three… five… ten minutes?"
Rainbow Dash clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. "My memories about what happened next are still hazy. At some point while trying to get away, I dove into a small opening between some rocks and hit my head. When I woke up, the manticore was gone, but so were Spitfire and Soarin.”
Taking a seat, Rainbow Dash slouched and let out a sigh. "I tried looking for them, but a pack of darkened wolves chased me to some ruins, where I became trapped.” Rainbow Dash gestured toward Twilight. “At least until she came along."
Zecora walked over to the kettle and brought it, along with some clay cups, back beside the green light of the fire. As she served the tea, her brow furrowed.
"Before you poked this wasp’s nest, were you able to see a mountain in the west?" she asked, offering them each a cup of tea. Twilight declined when it came to her.
"I don’t think so," Rainbow Dash said, taking a sip. She flinched as the hot liquid burnt the tip of her tongue and blew on it. "It was my first time on the ground. I would’ve been lost without Spitfire or Soarin there."
"Do you remember anything else distinct about this cave-filled area you passed through?"
Rainbow Dash shook her head.
Zecora sat back and sighed. "Then I’m afraid I am once again unable to help you."
Rainbow Dash stared at the surface of her tea. "I just wish I could remember more clearly what happened."
Twilight’s eyes narrowed at Zecora. "You’re lying."
Zecora’s eyebrows raised. "Pardon?"
"You know where the place in Rainbow Dash’s story is. I saw the recognition on your face as she described it."
Zecora grimaced and set down her tea. "True, I may know of where these caves lie, but that does not mean I told a lie. I cannot, in good conscience, indulge your disastrous curiosity, and so I have no intention of helping you find your way back to that monstrosity.
"Rest and live down here while you let your wing repair. Head back to Cloudsdale when you can once more take to the air. That is the advice I would instill. Do with it is as you will."
Rainbow Dash glanced at her back, reshuffling her wings. "It could be almost a year before my feathers grow back. I can’t wait that long to go looking for them, not when there’s a chance they could need help." She clasped her hooves together, gritting her teeth. "Please. Spitfire was like a big sister to me."
"I can’t imagine it’s the same in Cloudsdale," Pinkie Pie said, cutting in. "But down here, everypony has someone they’ve lost. Don’t you have parents? Friends back in Cloudsdale? You have to think of how they would feel if they lost you, too."
"They came back for me," Rainbow Dash said, turning a deaf ear to Pinkie’s advice. Her gaze was set firmly on Zecora. "They could have left me when the manticore attacked me and I couldn’t fly, but they didn’t. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least do the same for them. The two of them mean as much as family to me."
She sat up, crossing her hooves in front of her chest. "And if you won’t tell me where that place is, then I’ll just find it myself, even if it means having to walk to each and every corner of this forsaken forest."
Zecora lifted her teacup and tipped it to her lips, drinking deeply. As she set her cup down, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "If this is truly the path you are set upon, there would be no sense keeping what I know withdrawn."
"The place you seek is on the southern edge of the Everfree, where these pale trees are met with moss and greenery. Travel west along this edge and you shall find your caves." Zecora finished her tea and set the cup down. "And, I hope, not your graves."
Closing her eyes, she reached up and rubbed her forehead as if to stem an oncoming headache. She stood, glaring at Twilight and Rainbow Dash. "Now I must ask that the two of you most expediently depart. Having you linger would only serve to weigh further regrets on my heart."
She shooed them away with her hooves. "So now get out, get out of my den, but see to it you manage to return here again."
Twilight and Rainbow Dash backpedalled towards the door as Zecora forced them out. Rainbow’s rear pushed the door open, and then the two of them were outside. Zecora stood in the doorway.
She faced Rainbow Dash. "If you wish to head south, it is in that direction which you must aim," she said, pointing to her right. She then turned to Twilight. "And you, accursed life, touched by the dark, I never received your name."
Twilight stiffened, the hairs on her coat bristling. "My name is Twilight."
Zecora nodded to herself. "Know that one phase the curse will take its toll. Until then, I shall pray for your soul."
"Nice meeting you two!" Pinkie Pie shouted from inside, right before Zecora slammed the door.
The two of them stood in silence in the light of the clearing surrounding Zecora’s hut. Beyond where the moonlight poured, beyond the clearing and beneath the shade of the trees, the dark hissed and writhed.
Twilight’s horn lit up and a small flame flickered to life at its tip, lighting their surroundings. She began walking in the direction Zecora had pointed them.
"What was that about?" Rainbow Dash asked, following her into the dark. "‘Accursed life, touched by the dark’?"
Twilight ignored her, plainly wishing to walk on in silence.
Rainbow Dash stepped out in front of Twilight, stopping her in her tracks. "There’s something about you that’s been bugging me that I can’t quite figure out. You rarely sleep, yet you never seem tired. You rarely eat, yet you reject food. Most of all, I still have no idea why you’re helping me or what it is you’re hoping to get out of this."
"I’d rather not talk about it," Twilight said, avoiding Rainbow Dash’s eyes.
"Well, tough. It’s clearly something important, judging by what Zecora said and how you reacted, so you’re going to have to tell me about it if we’re really going to trust one another."
Twilight took a deep breath and let out a sigh. Undoing a clasp, she lifted her robes and lay them to her other side, revealing her flank. Blackness marred her skin. Rainbow Dash initially took it for bruising, but then saw how rough and flaky the skin was, like it had been burned to cinder.
Rainbow Dash reflexively took a step back, her snout wrinkling.
Twilight lowered her robes, covering her marred skin. "‘Accursed life, touched by the dark.’ And so I have been for seven years."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Come again? Seven years?"
"Seven years that I haven’t wanted for drink nor food. Seven years I’ve spent resisting the voices. Seven years I haven’t aged. One day it will take my life. I’ll become a darkened."
"But…" Rainbow Dash shook her head. "How did this happen?"
"I would rather not talk about it." As Rainbow was about to protest, she continued. "It brings up painful memories, even after all these years."
Rainbow Dash grew quiet. She stared at the ground, kicking the dirt. "Do you know how long you have?"
Twilight sat down, sighing. "No, I don’t. Its growth is sporadic. I could have as many as five years or as little as one."
On that last note, Rainbow Dash fell silent. She walked close by Twilight’s side. The light from Twilight’s horn didn’t travel far, and the dark always seemed to be pressing in.
Several hours passed before Rainbow Dash and Twilight once again saw moonlight. The pale woods of the Everfree stopped abruptly, opening to a field across which greener woods lay. The field was a rich blue-green and ran between the two woods like a river, stretching as far to either side as the eye could see.
Rainbow Dash released a boisterous yawn. "So," she said, smacking her lips. "Should we set up camp in the field? Great big clearing, easy to see if something’s creeping up on us, etcetera."
"No. It’s too noticeable. After traveling through these woods, we would be too exhausted to run if we got attacked by something we couldn’t handle." Twilight snuffed out the flame at the tip of her horn. She started across the field, nodding for Rainbow Dash to follow. "Come on, it’s only a little ways further to the woods."
Rainbow Dash groaned, trudging through the field.
Not far from the treeline, the campfire Twilight had started crackled with burning twigs as Rainbow Dash returned, carrying a large, thin fallen branch. Spitting it out, she began to go about breaking it up into kindling with her hooves.
"You should get some rest," Twilight said as she watched her work. "I can handle it from here."
Rainbow Dash ignored her, continuing to stomp and break apart the branch. "Just because you’re all untiring or whatever doesn’t mean I’m not going to pull my share around here."
"The earlier you get some rest, the earlier we can start west along the field, searching for where it is you and your party got split up."
Rainbow Dash continued to work, gritting her teeth.
Twilight glared at her. "Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow Dash gave the branch one final stomp before giving it a rest. She looked up at Twilight, her head hanging low and her eyelids drooping. "I guess you’re right," she said with a sigh.
After walking around the fire, she lay down beside Twilight. "I’m just tired of needing help. I needed help when I stumbled into that manticore’s den, I needed help when you found me in those ruins, and I needed help when that stallion had me pinned back at the farm house."
"I wouldn’t have been able to take away their advantage if you hadn’t distracted Applejack."
Rainbow Dash snorted. "Yeah, like begging for them to let us go as my face was pushed into the floorboards is anything to be proud of."
"Maybe not," Twilight said, shrugging.
Rainbow Dash stared into the campfire, the light flickering off her eyes. She let out a sigh and closed them.
"Well, good night," she said, and in the minutes following, drifted off to sleep.
Twilight used her magic to dim the fire—enough to stop it smoking, but leaving the burning coals to radiate their dying heat—and after, wrapped her cloak tightly around her front to pre-empt the cold that would soon follow.
Having settled in, she looked to the sky. The moon sat frozen in its throne among the stars. There it waned, the new moon a mere phase away as the season chilled and clouds crept into the sky. Clouds gathered round for rain, though there looked to be at least one more waking hour’s journey before it would come.
A low growl came from the trees. Twilight’s ears perked. Avoiding any sudden movements, she slowly climbed to her hooves, facing the direction she heard the growl come from.
Out from behind a tree stepped a massive darkened wolf. It stood across the campfire from her, its teeth bared and a low, menacing growl coming from its throat. Froth drizzled from its lips, and light grey fur hung in clumps from its charred skin.
Twilight readied her magic. The power of her pyromancy brought her horn to a faint glow, but she held back, curious as the darkened wolf made no move to attack—nor any move at all. She narrowed her eyes.
There was a wasp-like sting that came out of nowhere as something struck her neck. She winced. Reaching up with her hoof, she felt the spot she was stung, and her hoof came in contact with an object embedded in her neck. She yanked it out and it fell to the ground.
By the light of the fire’s coals, she could see the she had pulled out a dart. Its needle was tinted yellow, its end fletched with white fur.
Twilight narrowed her eyes at the darkened wolf standing opposite the campfire. It still stood there, growling. Waiting. Longer than any darkened should.
A hot flash passed through Twilight’s body, followed by a numbness. She tried locking her legs as the muscles in them gave way, but eventually collapsed and fell to the dirt. As a haze overtook her mind, the glow disappeared from her horn. She turned to Rainbow Dash to warn her, but her voice was cut short as she spotted a dart sticking out of her companion’s chest.
As Twilight struggled to keep her eyes open, the darkened wolf approached, a pony limping alongside it. The stranger bent down beside her and stroked her mane.
"There, there," a mare’s voice said, soothingly. "No need to fight it."
Twilight ignored the voice and fought to stay awake, but her struggle proved fruitless as her eyelids grew heavy and she slipped into unconsciousness.