Fighting the Darkness

by ScottishPony

Chapter 1 - Welcome to the world of talking horses!

The waking world. Man, had he missed it! He wasn’t sure how long he was out for, but it felt like a hell of a lot longer than the quick hour or two he had promised the doctors.

As his mind came closer to conscious, his senses were flooded with an input he... did not expect.

The scents of dew, flowers and fresh open air filled his lungs, and he could feel the soft texture of damp grass below him. A gentle breeze wafted over him and he could tell the sun was shining brightly despite not being directly under it’s gaze. Question is, how did he get there.

He knew it was all nice and dandy that he was laying in the shade of something- most likely a tree by the sounds of gentle swaying -but he knew he was last indoors.

As he lay motionless, little details began to slowly come back to him. Soon, he remembered he should be concust.

He remained still, focusing on the damage supposedly done to his head but... He couldn’t feel anything.

Nothing seemed to be wrong.

’Okay, what the hell is going on?!’ Sheamus hurriedly questioned himself as he began to sit upright and open his eyes for the first time.

His eyes shot wide as the image of a pristine meadow was shown to him.

"No... This can’t be right..." He muttered aloud as he stood up, still unable to remove his eyes from the sight laid before him.

However, his attempts to stand were futile, as every time he tried he would simply fall back down again.

"Alright, what the hell is-" the man was quickly cut off short as his gaze fell upon what was suppose to be his legs. One problem- they weren’t human.

Large, sturdy goat-like hooves replaced his feet, and a bright ginger fur happily sat against his new leg joint and all the way up to his chest.

He felt like he was going to faint! What did this to him?! Better question, what could do this to him?! How was he going to face his family again?! What about his friends?! And his job!! He couldn’t fight like this!! He couldn’t stand the thought of being like this in public!!

Yet he forced himself to cam down, and take the only conclusion any sane man would make- He must be dreaming!

He gave a soft sign of relief, but it was hurriedly cut short. It still all felt too real. Much too real to be a dream, wasn’t it?

His hands began shaking again as he lifted and gazed at his left one. Long claws tipped his fingers, and his muscle seemed to be much more tightly packed than before.

No- he had to stop getting distracted. There was only one way to tell if he was asleep or not. He gently reached over and gave his arm a harsh pinch.

A moment later, and he was softly cursing to himself while clutching the spot on his arm.

"What the hell?!" the pale-white being snarled, "Okay, we can rule dreaming out... God... that’s going to bruse for sure!"

He noticed a small trickle of blood flowing down his arm, but he paid no mind to it, and instead turned his attention to his surroundings. To his right, a dark forest lined the edge of a large meadow displayed directly in front of him. His only thought at that moment was ’Where the bloody hell am I?!’ as nothing seemed familiar to him.

To his left, there seemed to be a large lake with a pristine surface. He gulped.

’Might as well get a look at myself in this... new.... form.’

Using the tree as leverage, he managed to get himself to stand on his legs. Well, for a moment at least, as the second he tried to take a step, he landed back down on his arse.

The Celtic Warrior wouldn’t be beaten so easily though, and he tried to stand and take a step again. Same result.

’What the hell am I doing wrong?!’ Frustration was starting to creep in as he stood back up, but he did notice he was getting up quicker each time. ’At least that’s going for me...’

The man-horse-goat thing stood against the tree for just a moment more, refusing to be beaten by... his own bone arrangement? No! He refused to give up! After all, the lake was only about 10 meters away from him!

’Okay. Let’s take things a bit slower.’ He gingerly pressed one of his hooves in front of himself- good so far! He slowly removed his hands from the tree- amazing! And... lifting up his other hoof and....

’Thud.’ "Oh for fucks sake..."

... Maybe it’ll take a bit more practice to get it right...

Almost as if giving up, he began to almost drag himself along the floor on all fours. It seemed to be a better system than ’falling on your arse repeatedly’ which was good. His legs somehow began to work with him, miraculously, and began to push him forward until he was in a near-vertical position. Within moments, and he was at the pebble shoreline of the lake, staring at his pristine reflection.

One emotion in particular rose through the mix he was experiencing. Confusion.

It was his face, but at the same time it wasn’t. His mohawk was a good inch or two taller, with two long horns at either side, but other than that his face seemed almost exact same. Almost. A closer examination of his beard showed that the beads which hung down from his hair were now shaped like coiled snakes or dragons; their eyes glittering with fine gems- like rubies and emeralds. The man’s eyes were lost in the somewhat hypnotic gaze, until gentle ripples in the waters surface and a soft sound of growling drew his eyes away.

Unfortunately, as he turned around, his face met with that of a being of wood. Two other beings of wood- their forms rather familiar to wolves or some form of dog or mountain lion -stood eagerly behind, watching the one in front of them with excitement.

’Oh God...’ Sheamus gulped as he gently began to back away from the wooden being, but the lime green gaze followed him continuously with lust and anticipation.

"G-Good puppy tree things... I’m not going to hurt you..." but as he noticed the wolf-like being sniffing a rock coated in his crimson blood from his cut he got earlier. And now, it’s intentions became very clear.

The eyes of the being began to darken and the growls increased in volume as the other two began to approach as well.

’Well, it was a nice run.’ he gulped hard, despite there being no moisture in his mouth, ’I should probably start running now!’

And with that, the chase was on. Sheamus quickly stumbled into a sprint with the wolves in hot pursuit. The Rocky retain quickly smoothed out into grass, but the Satyr didn’t slow- he could feel their foul breath on the back of his shins!

Energy began running low for Sheamus, but the wolves seemed content to keep the chase going. On and on the wolves chased him through the meadow and towards the treeline; their woody jaws and sap-soaked tongues lolling wide open, putting their pointed ’teeth’ on display.

Exhaustion began to creep into Sheamus’s body, and every muscle screamed for him to stop. He just needed to get to a tree! One tree, and he was safe!

Luckily for him, the treeline stretched out right in front of him, and he viciously dug his claws in and scrambled up the one closest to him.

Safe... or so he thought.

The wolves howled loudly, and battered their huge bodies against the tree, shaking it down to the roots. They coiled themselves low to the ground and pounced at him, at an attempt to cling onto the tree and get up with him, but most attempts were futile. Most, that is.

The supposed ’leader’ of the small pack was finally able to pounce and dig his claws in the thick tree bark, leading it to go face to face with a petrified Sheamus.

Acting upon instinct, his hoof quickly launched out and smashed the wolf’s ugly face hard as he possibly could.

Bingo!

The entire wolf’s face seemed to almost explode into a shower of splinters, and the rest of the hulking body fell to the floor with a highly satisfying ’THUD!’.

The other two wolves looked horrified as they stared at the broken body of their leader, but only moments later the muzzle of the damn beast reformed!

Sheamus stared in complete disbelief at the being as it seemed to almost shake off the injury! What kind of dark magic was this?! But the wolf didn’t seem to hot about it, and gave a short growl, before turning and revealing the utterly broken face to the hiding Satyr. The muzzle of the beast was twisted and gnarled, showing that it wouldn’t be chasing any interspecies goat-people any time soon! Yet the gaze remained as ice cold as ever.

Sheamus retorted the cold gaze by flipping off the wolf with his middle finger and giving a triumphant smile.

But it seemed he wasn’t out of the fire just yet, as a loud cat-call of sorts filled the air, and the faces on the beasts dropped from seething rage to unimaginable fear.

A huge boulder see seemed to be hurled at the leading wolf, snapping it into pieces, and the other two quickly fled with their tails between their legs. As soon as the final wolf reformed, it quickly followed suit. What could was able to strike fear into such fearless creatures?!

Well, whatever it is, Sheamus didn't want to meet it, but he wasn't sure he had a choice.

"An’ don’t come back, ya’ hear!" the strangely female southern accent echoed through the air as the wolves disappeared deep into the forest, "Now, wha’ were they so worked up about?"

Sheamus did his best to lean away and coil with the branches, but his completion and fur colour made that very difficult. The tree gently shook as the being pressed her bodyweight against it. However, the face that Sheamus was expecting to see was not the result. Not even close.

In fact, he was met with a rather confused and horrified bright-orange and freckled face of a... Pony?

The man stared at the pony. The pony stared back. They were both locked in an almost unending silence for a good few minutes, until...

"Uh... Hi?"

Author's Note:

Stupidity? Check

Man, this has got to be up there on the list of "The dumbest things I have ever done" Again, is this any good? I have absolutely no clue.

Comments

[ScottishPony]

6543497 Slightly I mean, I feel like an awful person since I can't write Scottish or Irish for the life of me. I am a poor excuse for a Scottish person

[Roarbox]

Another one of these eh?
Glad you're inspired to write a story and all, but what happened to your Warrior Cats story, as well as your Pentatonix story?

Eh....... Either way, glad something is causing you some inspiration!
Much luck and a thumbs up from me, don't even need to read it.

[ScottishPony]

6545204 I guess I just ran out of steam on those. I tried to make myself sit down & write it, but I couldn't.

This I feel, will go much better as I have Chapter 2, 3 and soon to be 4 written on my kindle

[Roarbox]

6545383
That's good I guess. Too bad for those that like those other stories, but when the writer doesn't, well, what can you do eh?
Hopefully this one will stick. Heh.

[ScottishPony]

6545471 I sure hope so.