An Old Tale in a New World

by Impossible Numbers

Day 121

They marched through darkness, shoving aside nets of green and straining against the black surrounding them. Where the gaps of the ceiling of green were, tiny patches of grey could be seen. Everything pattered, and drops tapped their heads and backs. They may as well have been walking through water, so heavy and dank was the air.

While the red glow threw fronds and leaves aside, Quartzphere kept close to Selkie’s rear and his muzzle darted from branch to branch. It was all he could do not to whine.

“This is a bad place,” he muttered. “Wild place. So much green, I hold out my paw and think it’s emerald.”

“Just watch out for the spiders,” said Selkie, who threw her hood back. “One bite of an Amaponian Scythe Timer can kill you in seconds.”

Everything stank of damp. She glanced back and felt the weight of the dog almost crushing her, he was so close. She sighed.

“Sorry,” he said, and backed off.

“How did you end up in the Amaponian country?” she asked. “Northern Diamond Dogs prefer the old woods of home.”

“I end up here same as everyone else,” said Quartzphere. “New land, new life. My pack thrown out of old country by other packs. We came looking for gems to find and eat.” He spat. He took a quill and parchment from his satchel and began scribbling.

Selkie stopped to peer over her shoulder. Only when he nearly walked into her did she carry on magicking the tangles aside. “I’ve never seen a Diamond Dog writing before.”

“Yes, that is the old way of seeing us,” said Quartzphere without looking up. “Them Diamond Dogs, they cannot pick up paper without eating it. My pack, they like the old way, but they see the new way. They not like other packs. They say no alpha dog, no alpha pack, all packs bring their own cuts to the hoard. Old packs don’t like that. They say we thinking like ponies.”

“So why did you work for those… monsters?”

He rolled the scroll up and put it back in the satchel. “Old ways find you out in new world. Gems, fear, pushing nasty ponies around who hurt us? That reach in Diamond Dog soul, even if his mind thinks new thoughts.”

“You’ve gathered quite a few stories about me, haven’t you?” Her voice was carefully neutral.

“It’s my art. Back in old country, I get dogs from all under the ground to tell me stories. I dug all over, finding buried treasure, but in words, not gems. I met many ponies, too. Some tell me pony stories. When I can’t remember all the stories, some show me paper and quill, and so I use paper and quill. The rest just chase me with pike.”

He pulled out a scroll and offered it to her. “They how I learn of Enchantress!”

“You must have had quite a trip. You and the puppet, I mean.”

“We flee from temple and hide in many cottages. Then Crystal Puppet read minds, and she hear that the Enchantress looking for Naranja Pétalo, and at Duende Inn. So we find you and tell you, and here we are.” He sighed with a smile. “And here we are.”

She rubbed her forehead with her hoof, knocking against her horn. Despite all her work, cobwebs came away in veils.

“You fine?” Quartzphere stood on tiptoe to peer over her shoulder. “You stink really bad of sweat.”

“I’m just not used to the humidity.”

He smiled wanly. “I don’t care what Puppet say. You are Enchantress. That’s your legacy.”

“I never said it wasn’t.” Selkie flashed a grin and pushed through the undergrowth. “So, you’re not like the other Diamond Dogs. Like your pack, I mean. Do they bother you about it?”

He was silent. They continued further in silence.

“Sorry,” she said.

It may have just been the wind – though there wasn’t any – but she thought she heard a whisper say, “You don’t have to be sorry, Enchantress.”

She stepped on a log that cracked, and she froze.

The Timber Wolf threw itself away from her hooves and she screamed and reared back. Quartzphere snapped at the sight.

“No!” he shrieked, lunging forwards. The wolf swiped at him, shredding his left cheek and sending him flying. More howls echoed through the trees.

Selkie threw herself at the nearest trunk and was on a branch in seconds. The Crystal Puppet drifted up, hovering over a neighbouring branch.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Don’t you dare read my mind –”

Quartzphere clambered up after them, clutching his cheek as blood seeped between his paws. They stared down at the Timber Wolves, still clawing at the bark and snapping at them. Selkie embraced her branch until the splinters pricked.

“What are those things?” she shrieked.

“Tirek’s first sacrifices.” The Crystal Puppet looked down at them with a curl in her carved lip. “The animals were so good that he dragged them in by the cartload. They make for a very… resourceful army.”

Quartzphere howled and smothered his face with his paws. His body twisted and shook, and the branch threatened to crack away under him.

“Quartzphere!”

“Interesting.” The Crystal Puppet rubbed her chin with a tiny hoof.

“What’s going on with him?”

“Hold on.” The Crystal Puppet closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them wide. “There are two minds in there.”

“What?”

“A second mind is in there. It’s more… animal… than his. It’s trying to take over. It’s doglike. Moreso than his. And it doesn’t like us.”

“He can’t be taken over!” Selkie pulled up as snapping jaws nearly snagged her cloak. “He’s up here with us!”

Quartzphere lowered his paws. His eyes glowed green.

“No, Quartzphere! Remember your scrolls! Fight it, fight it, fight it!”

“It’s just like me,” said the Crystal Puppet, shrugging over her head. “Weird things happen when a mind leaves its body. It must be that Timber Wolf he ate earlier. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Will you stop that and try and help him?”

One of the Timber Wolves leaped up and snapped at the underside of Selkie’s hooves. The Crystal Puppet glared, and the wolf's head rolled off, leaving its body to shatter on a pack member’s body below. More wolves rocketed out of nowhere and began clawing at the trunk, snapping in their fallen comrade’s place. The Crystal Puppet groaned and sagged in midair. She almost fell, only to be scooped up by Selkie’s fast hoof.

The Crystal Puppet’s head snapped round on its neck, almost poking her nose to nose. “You can chip in any time, you know.”

Both of them jumped back. Quartzphere’s paw slashed, catching the cloak and tearing the fabric.

Then he drew back along the branch, clutching his head and groaning, closing his eyes. When they opened again, the green glow was gone.

“The Timber Wolf is winning!” He groaned and seized his head, scrunching his face. “Use your magic! Why aren’t you using your magic?”

Blue blurs shot past, and Selkie saw the world shoot past for a horrible second. She seized the branch with one hoof as the blue streaks shot up into the grey sky. The Crystal Puppet grabbed her cloak and dangled below her.

“Drat,” she said, spinning her neck all the way round. “Cobalt Eagles!”

Branches shivered around them and shiny lines of dirty gold slithered along the forest’s contours. Nearer ones shined with blue dotted eyes at the tips.

“Oh darn,” she said. “Copper Anacondas!”

Trees crashed and tumbled nearby. Something like an ice boulder charged through the green, tearing it up as it went.

“Oh, heck no!” she said. “Gristle Bears!”

“Gristle Bears?”

“You don’t want to know how they’re made. What are you doing?”

Selkie closed her eyes and began to whimper. She clutched at something around her neck. “I can do this, I can do this…”

She glanced down. The Timber Wolves were snarling and snapping, but the Gristle Bear was pushing its way through. Angry pink eyes turned up to her. She glanced around. Gleaming snakes unfurled and sparks flashed from fang to fang. She glanced up. Streaks of blue arced and zoomed over the canopy.

She glanced at Quartzphere’s green eyes, which shifted to red pupils in two pools of yellow.

“Enchantress!” He reeled back, and lashed out with a claw.

It stopped in midair. Green eyes narrowed and he peered down.

Crimson light flared in his face. The Timber Wolves howled and whined. The Gristle Bear roared. Selkie floated above everything, mane flowing over scrunched eyes. Her hoof and neck were lost in a red star. The leaves began to rustle. High winds flowed from all corners.

Cobalt wings drew back and threw forwards their blue talons.

The Cobalt Eagles stopped in midair. Black talons had enveloped them.

Giant eagle-like bodies flapped and hovered around Selkie like ghosts. Their heads were those of ponies, but with stretched snouts ending in hooks, yellow eyes with pinprick irises, and peacock-like feathers shaking from their heads and necks. They shrieked at the creatures, and closed talons. There were several cracks. Fragments of blue rained on the Timber Wolves’ faces.

The harpies flexed their black talons and dived screaming into the pack. Wing beats struck at the canopy. Snakes fell from the branches into the flailing black. The bear reared up, shaggy white claws slashing, and vanished in a frenzy of feathers. Wood splintered. Howls were suddenly cut off. Yelps and pattering feet faded away. The bear roared, and then yapped. Something exploded, and for a brief moment it seemed to be snowing.

The harpies’ cries vanished. As the gale whipped through the trees, it died down. The light faded away, and the ruby swung on its chain around the aquamarine neck. Selkie’s face collapsed.

It was then that Quartzphere fell past and hit the ground. Selkie opened her eyes and dropped onto all fours.

“You don’t even have magic of your own, do you?” whispered the Crystal Puppet in her ear. Selkie jumped back.

“I – what? Ow!” She seized her quivering horn with a hoof. “Don’t do that!”

The ruby flared, and the horn faded.

“I thought so!” The Crystal Puppet lay slumped next to her hoof, its legs twisted around each other, but its eyes narrowed. “You were very convincing last night, but still, that red glow, those spirit forms… I should have seen right through you. I don’t understand why I didn’t before. You’re not even a real unicorn.”

Selkie lowered her head, and then her eyes widened. She waved her hoof over her forehead, and gasped. The Crystal Puppet snorted and untangled itself.

“Yes, I’m not a unicorn. But this ruby,” said Selkie in a trembling voice, “just saved you.”

“Yes, yes it did.”

“So show some respect!”

“I am. Oh, I am.”

Selkie followed her gaze. “Don’t look at it like that. I don’t like the way you’re looking at it.”

“Oh you don’t, do you?”

There was a pause.

The Crystal Puppet frowned, and shook her head. They stared at each other.

“Something wrong?” said Selkie.

“N-No. No. Nothing’s wrong.” The Crystal Puppet waved her on. “On to the temple, O Mighty Enchantress.”

Selkie hurried over to the groaning figure of Quartzphere, and didn’t notice the glare the puppet was giving her. The Crystal Puppet traced a ring around her own neck, and smirked.

---

The temple stood quietly under the downpour. Mist rolled in so that distant mountains seemed to fade into nothing. Palm-like leaves shook and dribbled.

A hoof shifted a leaf aside and Selkie peered out, both eyes glowing as red as the ruby on her chest. She sniffed, and then yelped as Quartzphere pushed his way forwards to see. The Crystal Puppet, slumped over his shoulders and held in place with one paw, peered out from between his ears.

“Hurry up,” hissed the puppet. “I’m getting weaker. I can feel it slipping away.”

“Should we sneak in?” said Quartzphere.

“I thought you said there’d be guards.” Selkie’s ruby glowed brighter. A harpy, ghostly and a blur, swept over the pampas and through the village to the temple, where it drifted through the walls without regard for solidity.

A second harpy faded into existence and flapped up to the apex of the pyramid. It hovered, beating its incorporeal wings, and turned from the north to the east, then to the south, and then to the west. It flipped over and dived back to the ruby, along with the first harpy that sped through the wall and glided back. The two vanished.

Selkie frowned. “Just a few souls in the temple, and another few in the village, near the edge. They’re all ponies, though.”

“No one else?” said the Crystal Puppet.

“No. No Tirek or Scorpan. No Diamond Dogs. Not even any of those strange beasts.”

“We help villagers.” Quartzphere threw himself into a three-legged run, holding the puppet in place as its legs threw themselves around. “You check the temple.”

She watched him disappear among the thatched and tinder ruins, and stared up at what seemed to her an impossible mountain. It was a while before she could take her first few steps, and the pyramid never got closer no matter how long she felt she’d walked.

The archway was right in front of her. She clutched her ruby in one curled hoof, ignored the way it rattled as she trembled, and hobbled in.

The entire space was black, except for a tombstone of light radiating from the arch. Everything stank of mould and decay, and it stung her nose until she let go of her ruby and covered her face. She could hear steady breathing.

Selkie closed her eyes. The darkness she saw behind her lids ignited to red.

She opened her eyes to a prism of grey and green where rock and vine stood in a painting, locked in a fight for space. Torches now flickered and crackled around her. Only the altar like a round table was pure grey. Cracks ran along the floor from a dent near her.

All the slabs around her seemed level, but something felt wrong. She heard a sniff and turned to face a corner near the arch.

Ponies piled up against the sloping wall. They were packed so tightly that the spaces between one pony’s parts turned out to hold another pony’s parts like a puzzle. Apart from rising and falling chests, they were stiff and still, shoved out of the way and forgotten about.

Selkie tried to breathe out, but even her diaphragm was quivering. She wiped what she hoped was slick rain from her forehead, and almost yelped when she felt no horn there. It was then that her gaze drifted over to the other corner. Crystal puppets were piled up there.

She stared at the altar. Hadn’t she heard of stories like this? The Ahuitzotls on the beaches had stopped and lit campfires, and as they gathered around to crunch and chew who knew what, they told stories of their gods. Creatures that did things to the mind, powers that went beyond mere magic, and forces shaped into beings.

She held the ruby to her nostrils and sniffed. Faint scents of vanilla soothed her nose, driving out the decay and the stings until she could almost taste sugar.

No one was here. No one was going to ask. And now she’d pulled at a thread, hoping for a simple search and rescue, and now she was in a wretched ‘adventure’ and her opponents could shift minds.

The altar was much bigger up close. She could have laid down on it and rolled over completely at least twice, and she’d still have room for a salmon.

Her ruby glowed.

One of the ponies drifted up from the pile, shifting legs and heads out of the way, and bobbed up and down as it came close to the altar. A puppet rolled out of the other pile and zoomed towards her head. They both stopped inches from each ear, which flicked.

To her surprise, she was shaking even harder.

“It could be for the best,” she whispered to the ruby. “If I can do it, then I’m equal to them. And that’s a good thing. You never know. It might even be enjoyable. You don’t know until you’ve tried it. Just one. One can’t hurt, right?”

A thin thread slid from pony to ruby, and from ruby to puppet.

“We found ponies!”

Quartzphere’s shout echoed from all sides, and she dropped both bodies and spun around. He loped through the arch just as the red light vanished.

“We found ponies, but they not waking up.” He slammed all four paws against the ground and sat down next to her.

She followed his gaze to the altar. Both bodies had hit the edges, and she pushed the pony’s head onto the slab.

“Oh.” Selkie shrugged. “Good. I-I was just testing them, and I think they’ve been cursed. Those two brutes sure left in a hurry, didn’t they?”

The Crystal Puppet, still splayed over the hairy back, strained against gravity to lift her neck. Carved eyes narrowed at Selkie, pupils darting from recumbent puppet to sleeping pony and back. Selkie turned away from them and focused.

A flash of red filled the temple and blinked out of existence. Groans and yawns filled their ears.

Selkie and Quartzphere cantered over to the pile and, with slow hooves and paws, shifted the fidgeting bodies to the wider floor. The clop of hooves pattered like rain on a glass window. Soon, many bodies were standing up.

“There’s a foal here,” said the Diamond Dog, holding it up to the light. Half an orange was on its flank. Selkie nodded and grinned.

“That’s her. Let’s head back to the village.”

“Very good, Enchantress,” hissed a voice behind them, “but you’re forgetting something.”

The Crystal Puppet was on its knees and standing barely level with their ankles, but still the glare was on its face. Selkie almost backed away.

“Oh come on,” Selkie said. “I was asked to find Naranja Pétalo and take her back. We don’t know where those two beasts have gone, not in that sprawling green death trap. They could be at the coast by now, for all we know.”

“You were also asked to get my body back. I’m pretty sure my body isn’t made of crystal.”

Selkie gritted her teeth and covered her ears.

The Crystal Puppet bared its chipped teeth. “I don’t know what’s going on with my head – whether you’re doing something, or whether controlling this blasted body is sucking me dry – but I know what I saw you doing just now, and it wasn’t to test for sleeping spells.”

A bolt of red shot out and scorched the slab next to the crystal hoof. Selkie’s wide eyes and gaping mouth clammed up quickly before her gasp could escape, but she secretly knew; that moment when the Crystal Puppet actually jumped back a whole yard would be treasured forever on dark nights. She stomped forwards.

“N-No. No! I’m not putting up with any more of this… this mind trickery stuff! I said NO!” Selkie’s eyes flared red. The puppet fell back onto her haunches. “I don’t care if you spread the word from tundra to tropics. If I go looking for those two…” She glanced at Quartzphere. “When I go looking for those two, then I’ll do it on my own terms.”

“Please leave Enchantress alone. Please!” Quartzphere bent down so his nose was level with the puppet’s. “She’s not a bad pony. She’s helping us.”

“Do I have – ouch – to remind…” The Crystal Puppet slumped. “To remind you… of what I can do?”

All the ponies standing around, still rubbing their heads and yawning, suddenly went stiff. The Crystal Puppet grinned at the slabs beneath her. Several ponies gathered round.

The foal known as Naranja Pétalo snapped to attention. “Rego?” she asked. “Rego, is that you? Ow!”

She winced and tried to scrape her own ears off. Several ponies hit their skulls and groaned in an outbreak of silent pain.

“What are you doing?” said Quartzphere.

“No, Rego, stop it!” howled Naranja Pétalo. “I can’t take it anymore! Stop whispering in my ears!”

“– will take the ruby off her neck,” muttered the puppet, and then she put a hoof over her mouth. “Did I just say that out loud? Oh darn.”

Naranja Pétalo looked down at her for the first time. It took an eternity for the foal to figure out what she was seeing. Selkie and Quartzphere jumped when the little mare burst into laughter.

“Now I see everything!” she boomed. “Rego, once mighty bully, a puppet? Will wonders never cease? Did you do it, señora?”

“She’s rambling,” said Quartzphere.

“Shock,” said Selkie. “I think.”

“This ‘señora’,” hissed the Crystal Puppet, pointing at Selkie, “couldn’t conjure a bean without that stolen jewellery.”

“So what?” Naranja Pétalo nudged the puppet with a hoof. “I remember you, Rego. I remember your ‘natural’ powers. Getting into ponies’ minds, throwing things around without touching them – you could have been an Enchantress yourself, if you’d had the cojones to take on anyone like you.”

“Come on,” said Selkie gently, easing the foal’s foreleg over her cloaked shoulders. “Quartzphere, grab this other leg. Let’s go home, little mare. You’re delirious.”

“Far from it! I am as clear in my mind as I ever be. She only ever ruined our villages and towns, asking for anything and everything, and then if we didn’t… she thought she was the big boss in our world, she did. Even when we up and moved here on the ships, the crew were no better than slaves to her. Well, it didn’t help our villages, did it? Didn’t care enough to stop those monstruos del infierno until it was your neck on the line, did you? Look what all your power got you, little puppet!”

As they ambled away from the herd, they pretended she wasn’t talking to empty air with half-closed eyes. Selkie was looking anywhere other than at the mouth still flapping beside her face.

“So I don’t give un maldito if this Enchantress earth pony couldn’t light a fire without help. She saved us, not you, and that’s all I need to know.”

The ruby glowed, and Naranja Pétalo’s eyes closed. Her head bumped into Quartzphere’s.

“Ow!” He growled and then stopped himself when he remembered who he was growling at. “Enchantress! Why you put her to sleep?”

They walked in silence, finally entering the humid air outside. They stopped to rest, panting with the foal weighing down their backs.

“Do you think all that stuff is true?” said Selkie. “About the village, I mean?”

“I don’t know Crystal Puppet well enough, but I hope not.”

They listened to the distant chorus of birds. “Quartzphere, do you ever wonder if you might be wrong about people?”

The Diamond Dog blinked at her. “What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know. All this hatred, and fear, and… and all the other horrible stuff. I think of the harpy spirits, and I think: what if we didn’t have to second-guess all the time? What if we just made people like Rego good and happy? That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

“Don’t know. Don’t think so, somehow.”

The phoenix’s song burst through their ears. It ripped at the sky, hacked and slashed at their ears, and seemed to throw their insides until they spread out their limbs to stop the earthquake.

“Well, the harpies are powerful,” shouted Selkie over the screeches. “They don’t have agendas of their own. They just help. But they can’t help the stuff hidden in pony minds. If I learned a bit more magic, I could create harpies that could hunt down the… the dark places inside. They could encourage harmony and cooperation, and they could do it by eating away all the hatred and fear. It wouldn’t be like that puppet!” Selkie withered under Quartzphere’s glare. “It’d be helping ponies, not using them like toys. The harpies don’t do anything they’re not told to do.” She stroked her chin. “Maybe I could make new kinds. Name them after myself. I could make my own legacy, you know?”

The phoenix stopped screeching and zoomed into the grey, fading from view.

Quartzphere shook his head sadly. “Enchantress, this is not good thinking. Tirek and Scorpan wanted to make new kinds. See what they did.”

Selkie glared at him, and then pretended to watch the shifting shadows of the mountains. Quartzphere laid the foal down and put his paw on her shoulder.

“It has been an honour to meet you, living legend,” he murmured. “You have a good legacy, and many tales. That’s more than I have. More than my whole kind have.”

“But none of those tales are mine,” she said to the mountains. “I have no legacy. I’m nobody. Yet.”

“But you are. You are Enchantress.”

“No, I’m not!” She thrashed her head from side to side and stared at the earth. “I mean… I’m not. I never was, and I never will be.”

They didn’t move for a while.

Quartzphere didn’t say anything, and he certainly didn’t sigh. Yet, Selkie sensed something die in him, and his paw barely felt like it was there anymore.

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and shuffled back inside the temple, sniffing as he did so.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered when she was sure he was gone. “I’d be nothing like those monsters.”

Wouldn’t I?