12 Drone
The trip from the newly established Equestria and the changeling homeland is a perilous one. Usually once you are a full Queen, you establish a permanent portal from your Hive to the center of changeling territory. I did not use it because the portal was no longer valid. The death of a Queen destroys her personal portals, between Hive and Conclave,or between Hive and Hive. It is required of any heirs or new Queens to travel to the Conclave on their own two hooves. It is a vital tradition.
"Why?" You may ask. The answer to the question is... we're not entirely certain. The trip from wherever you considered home, be it in a Hive or in some form of foster care, has some effect on us. We, regardless of age, mature on the trip. Even if it is uneventful, the trip itself helps us to grow and change. For myself, despite it taking three months to travel across the continent, it was enough time to process my grief. I spent much of the trip crying, but when I entered the more dangerous areas, I found myself growing into my role as Protector-Queen, not only emotionally but also magically and physically. I hope that your pilgrimage is less eventful.
SE 1015
Another hour passed before anything particular happened. In that time the fog thickened even further, causing them all to huddle in a small bubble around the cart with their things. Walking about felt wet, and the occasional branch from a tree seemed to hover over them currently had Fluttershy hiding behind Applejack, shaking from tail to hoof. The water lapping on the sides of the swamp, sounds of animals outside of where they can see, and wind were the only sounds heard from outside of the group. If one of their number began moving out of what, to Moonlight, was a visible circle of influence for even a second, they found themselves blinded and easily distracted, only returning to the camp when one of their number, usually Moonlight herself, found some way of physically leading them back to the camp.
Rainbow was being entertained by a game with Pinkie Pie, this was the second time someone had tagged out, but at least this time she was having fun with her distraction from the current ban on flight. Rarity was alternating between helping with the distraction game and herding the distracted changeling princess into the center of the group. Moonlight, for no apparent reason to the rest of the group, would occasionally see somepony with red eyes just outside of the camp. Every time she tried to walk over and try to bring them in, however, she was brought back to the center of camp and would lose sight of them.
Twilight Sparkle walked up to Princess Luna. "There doesn't seem to be even a dent in the fog," her horn lit up in a purple hue, as she tried to push some of it aside, "I've been trying to move it myself in various ways, but nothing seems to affect the fog. It feels," she paused, moving one forehoof in a circle, looking for the right word, "Slippery. It's just not natural."
"Natural, to ponies, means controllable," Luna replied. She did eye the fog, though, "I agree with you, however. There is something almost artificial about this fog." She flapped her wings, causing a particularly thick wisp of the fog cloud to swirl. "These are too resistant to change, it is as though something has reinforced the clouds." Her horn lit up in a light blue aura, scanning the clouds here and there, "I can find no response suggesting that it is based on magic, however. I have tested several times. Have you?"
Twilight shook her head, "No. I've tried Hoofshore's Scanner, the Maerian Method, and even medical scans, but nothing comes up. Or, at least, nothing I can understand." She cast a scanning spell as an example, but the fog did not react. "My magic seems to just slide over it, as though it were some sort of anti-magic field. That's not possible, though. Only a few substances have that sort of characteristic, and none have ever been found in clouds." Luna frowned, before her own horn lit up.
Unicorn magic, and even Alicorn magic to an extent, usually was calm, with smooth waves from the base to the tip. This, however, was not so... it was pale, almost completely transparent, but lacked the smooth nature. Instead her magic stabbed out from her horn at random intervals, raising and lowering without any visible clue as to why. Her eyes closed as she focused on the spell, though unlike Twilight, she did not sweat from the effort of the spell. No, this was not a difficult spell, but rather an old one. the magic shot out, spreading rapidly enough that Thorax looked up from what appeared to be some form of hoof-crafting to see it fill the space. It hovered for few seconds before returning as rapidly as it left to her horn. she did not share the result, but Luna no longer looked bored, her gaze intent on one of many wisps of fog.
The two pegasi guards flew above the forest, "Where does the fog end?" One of them asked, looking to his partner. After getting no answer, he stopped flapping up, "Hey, come on man. We're guards. We don't prank each other." With a few strong beats of his winds, he unknowingly echoed his Princess, with the same result. "What? That's not..." He shook his head, and then dove, thinking maybe the person got lost. "Feli! We need to clear the sky, where are you?" He saw a figure flying in the distance, and shot off in search of them, "Hey!"
He flapped his wings, banking to the right, left, and flying up, following this figure that somehow was never close enough to get a clear idea of who, or what they were, but he was convinced that it was his partner. He continued to follow this figure until he was hopelessly lost, unable to even remember the number of turns needed to return to camp. By this point he was too tired to continue flying at such a high speed, and decided, while panting, to land on the ground. At this point he finally saw the figure up close, but... why was everything so blurry? He wasn't that tired...
"Come, Twilight Sparkle," Luna spoke, her eyes on Moonlight, who was again walking towards the edge of the camp, "Let us ask what the eyes of an illusionist have seen."
"Where did that come from?" They had been working on every scanning spell they could think of, and when that did not work then they moved on to trying various ways to get the fog to react to their spells. At last, Luna had made her suggestion, but Twilight didn't understand. How could a foal, even a changeling, understand enough complicated magic to be able to break through the absolute impossibility of a force of nature that did not bend to a pony? The fog was acting as though it were a cloud from the Everfree Forest, or perhaps worse. At least it was, if prohibitively difficult, possible to affect them, but this fog was impervious even to Twilight's Failsafe Spell. That had worked on the insanity of Discord!
"Changelings are not ponies, Twilight Sparkle."
"That's obvious, they're an entirely different species. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Though the fog has thickened, she still has no trouble checking on each of us, and always stops just shy of where everypony gets lost." Twilight blinked, that was true. Sure, they were constantly bringing her back to the center of camp, but she never showed any signs of acting like she was going to go into the swampland alone, unlike some of the guard.
"When she does, it's always to bring one of the guards back too..." Luna nodded.
"I suspect that in her eyes, something we do not see is present." She rose to her hooves, turning to bein the walk to her.
"Or... maybe she doesn't see something we do?" Twilight, now interested, rose to hers as well and followed Luna over to the changeling princess. Moonlight herself appeared to be staring into the distance, or, as she saw when Luna and herself had approached close enough, something directly outside of the makeshift camp. "Princess Moonlight?"
The changeling looked to the two of them, taking several steps away from the perimeter, "Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna? What do you need?"
A fair question, so she took a moment to think, before replying "What are you looking at?" It was what was the most interesting to her at the moment. She could understand if there were an animal, but it was impossible to see anything through the fog, wasn't it? Wait, why aren't I sure? It is impossible to see. There's nothing but impregnable fog beyond this point. Moonlight, for her part, frowned in confusion.
"What do you mean? There's somepony watching us." At Twilight and Luna's surprised expressions, she took a tentative step towards them, "W-wait, can't you see them? They're right there," She gestured to the fog, "Right in front of me. They've been circling us since this morning. I swear they've been muttering things, it's just too quiet for me to pick up. Which is weird, I should be able to hear it... it's not like they're quieter than Fluttershy."
"Describe them, Princess Moonlight," Luna knelt down to get close to her eye level, "There may be something you see that we don't."
"That makes no sense. I'm just a kid." Still, she could see how serious the princesses were, so she took a breath, "Ok. Uhm, they're tall. Almost as tall as Princess Twilight, I think? No, taller. Uhm," She flew up, placing a hoof somewhere between the height of Twilight and Luna, "They're about this tall, with white-grey fur. I think. They're kind of blurry, like they're not quite there?" Curse her lack of vocabulary! If she were just two years older, she probably could have explained it completely! "I can't tell if they're on two or four hooves, but they have wings, and red eyes that kind of glow."
"Kind of glow?"
"Can you take their form, Moonlight?" Also kneeling down, Twilight decided to take the initiative. Just hearing the description wasn't getting them very far. "You can make other disguises, right? Or is that something adults can do but foals can't?"
"No," Moonlight shook her head, "I can do it. I think. I don't know if I can get the blurry part right, but I'll do what I can." Her horn lit up, this time fluctuating between her own magical color of a pale, silvery blue, and her mother's gradient from red to pink, first wrapping herself in light so she didn't make them sick. She didn't know if it would, but it was better to be careful, right? Her Father had always said so. When she was next clearly visible, she was a miniature version of the pony she saw beyond the fog.
The first thing that Luna and Twilight noticed was the fur, or was it a lack of fur? Or was it a robe? It seemed to shift with each blink of their eyes, a dull grey that was only just visible with all of the fog around them. After they had adjusted to what they assumed was a result of Moonlight not understanding what she was looking at, their eyes were drawn to different parts of the creature. Luna noted the twin horns atop it's head, horns which at first looked like just one, but seemed to split into two right after. Or, were they twisted around one another? Or were they on entirely different parts of the creature's head? Trying to figure this out was starting to give her a migraine. Either way, the fog seemed to twist around the horn, horns, helix, whatever it was with an almost intricate understanding. Luna could almost follow one wisp around the horn, even while it changed. Which was impossible, horns don't change like that. Did Moonlight really not see it clearly, or was this what the creature's horn truly looked to be?
What drew Twilight's eyes, however, was it's posture. It was standing on it's hind hooves, despite the presence of two absolutely normal forehooves on it's entirely normal, if covered in a constantly changing coat of what she would call fur for simplicity's sake, forelegs. This led her to also note that it was neither male nor female, and stood on it's hind legs almost as tall as Luna, just as Moonlight had earlier suggested. Her attention was drawn to the fog around it. Where was her mane and tail? Moonlight surely would not have missed such a vital detail. Luna, having also started to look Moonlight's transformed head, looking for her mane, noticed at the same time exactly what Moonlight did. There was, in fact, a mane and tail. It was, however, frighteningly long.... so long as to have blended into the fog. No, it didn't blend with the fog. The creature's mane and tail were the fog. It swirled in an unfelt wind, tangling around both the horn(s) of the creature, and the the rest of it hung all around them. It took but a moment for both of them to pale, as the implications of this train of thought became quite clear. Then, they made the mistake of looking into Moonlight's eyes. Or, rather where the eyes should have been on the creature. Twilight turned and puked into the shore, while Luna found herself staring deeply into the eyes of a creature that, by all her knowledge, should have been impossible for her to comprehend, let alone see so clearly.
Moonlight's eyes were no longer in their proper place. No, it was as though her entire head had been split into two. Her muzzle and mouth were still in their proper place, but the rest of her face looked as though someone had seen a corpse and performed horrendously amateurish plastic surgery. The flesh twisted to accommodate the two vertical eyes, a bright red the color of freshly spilled blood, and one, no, both of the ears had found their way to the same half of the face both eyes were placed. It was made worse by the innocent, helpful look in them, so opposite of the creature's true appearance. Even were this flawed in some way, it was enough for Luna to recognize from tales told what they were facing. She raised one hoof to her mouth, holding in her own gag reflex as she closed her eyes.
"Is this a good enough idea of what they look like? I couldn't tell if they were a mare or stallion, so I went for androgynous." Twilight nodded, before turning away and puking.
"You may return to your normal form," Even Luna sounded somewhat queasy. It was no surprise to her, however. She knew of this creature, having heard of it from Queen Polaris, "In fact, please do so. Ponies were not meant to know the creature's true form."
"What," Twilight swallowed down another amount of upchuck, "What was that... thing."
"I do not know the name, but I have heard of them, from Queen Polaris." Luna herself only looked once more after Moonlight returned to her natural form, "This is dangerous. No one is to leave the group, for any reason."
"Why?"
"It preys on the lost."
Drone -Dull, monotonous tone such as a humming or buzzing sound. Also a bass note held under a melody.
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
846 users online
700,197 hits today, 2,139,894 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I think the reason you don't feel their reaction is earned is because I'm, as purely an audience member, not sure who is the point of view character. It sort of wafts between Twilight, Luna, some third view at the very start (Polaris' story exert not included), then Moonlight near the end. As such, we don't feel the full emotional force of just one point of view character. It drifts and clings only a bit to each, kind of like the fog you are writing. Yet, I don't see it entirely as a bad thing because it kind of works with the eerie tension.
10085995
I see, thank you very much. I'll keep that in mind going forward.