Chapter 2 - Zebra, Zebra, Cooking Hot, What Concoctions In Thy Pot?
There’s a reason every fairy tale known to mortal and immortal alike takes place at least partially in a forest. Forests are some of the spookiest, scariest, places to be: they are dark, they are oppressively silent in the noisy way that nature always is, they are without mankind’s civilising touch, and they feel like they are alive and well-aware of the mortal fool that has stumbled his way into their domain.
As Sinclair put it when he wrote ‘The Jungle’. "Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it---it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life."
Granted Sinclair was talking about Chicago when he wrote that, but a city is as just as violent as nature, red in tooth and claw. The only difference being that the city wants to drink you dry first and will use every civilised trick in the book to do so. Nature just wants you dead, and will do so in many, many interesting ways.
Or terrifying ways. It’s really all the same thing once you step into nature's dark realm.
It’s this constant sense of vague malice that digs at the nerves. The long shadows cast by each tree-trunk that blend together, hiding anything and everything with each subtle shift of the underbrush that could be a stalking predator or a whispering wind. The invisible things that reach out and touch you uninvited: thin slapping tree branches coming out of nowhere to leave welts on exposed skin, soft, wet, moldering leaves that caress against your body like the hands of long-dead lovers, and spiderwebs that suddenly cling to your face as if they were curses sent by a cruel god. Even the ground itself is twisted by some malign will, rising and falling with each carefully made step, while stones, vines, roots, and underbrush rip and pull at your feet and legs hoping to trip you over a hidden ledge that could be anywhere between six inches or six feet.
I’ve read plenty of fairy tales, something that’s almost a job requirement considering I’ve thrown down with monsters out of the said stories, that treat running through these sorts of forests as a hero’s past-time: dodging around fallen logs, hopping over snarled roots, gliding through catching brush, all like it was the most natural thing in the world. One of the many fabled powers of one-true-herodom.
In real life it never works, unless you have something looking over your shoulder the entire time.
Okay maybe it’d work in those vast, ancient European oak forests, where they love to shoot ‘medieval’ dramas about Robin Hood, Merlin, Arthur, and whichever of the Bard’s tales they feel like sucking the subtext out of. But in the forests I’m used to, that horrible, clinging, unrelenting, trap of nature that is the USA’s native brush? You’d be better off finding a sledgehammer and a nurse who’s willing to recreate 'Misery' with you.
At least the main character of Misery survived. I wasn’t sure I’d have the same luxury.
Oh this place wasn’t the nightmare tangle of the hikes I was used to. The ground was clear enough and the trees weren’t exactly clustered like too many people in too small a space, but the undergrowth seemed to grow in thick green walls—stretching from trunk to trunk while leaving the rest of the ground no worse than an ill-maintained city park. And if that wasn’t enough the whole place was unreal.
It had been maybe sixty, seventy five minutes since I’d staggered out of that village and into this place. I think I’d prefer the inside of whatever jail cell they’d stick me in for the crime of self-defense and property damage.
Don’t get me wrong, the cell would be dull compared to this place. In the first thirty minutes I’d already seen flowers in black and white and all colors and shades in-between, including several colors that I’m sure were never meant to be seen, thorned and bloodied vines that I gave a wide berth, and poisonous looking mushrooms of great girth and those were only the most notable of the things on display. It was beautiful in that weird ‘I’m walking through something that shouldn’t exist and will probably attempt to kill me’ way that I only got to experience when I was walking through the Nevernever for the first time.
After the first time through the Nevernever I had been a bit too fixated on the fairy godmother attempting to turn me into one of her hunting hounds to really appreciate the scenery.
I’m fairly certain the jail cell wouldn’t feel like it was waiting for me to fall asleep before it pounced though.
I hadn’t noticed when I stumbled under the first trees, my head still swimming with the backlash of my out-of-control shield spell. I don’t think I noticed even as my wits returned to me and the self-recrimination started. I did notice when my hand started drifting unconsciously towards the revolver that had somehow stayed in my pocket despite the wringer I had just been put through.
Something was watching me.
People will talk about the heebie-jeebies as though they’re some sort of irrational and uncontrollable urge that shouldn’t be taken seriously, but when it comes down to it, when you’re alone in the dark and the hairs on your neck start to stand up, everyone reacts the same way.
They run. They hide. They escape the dark and pray to whatever they have faith in.
There’s a damned good reason for this ‘irrational’ behavior.
Even in mortals without magic those hairs on the back of your neck are a sign that things are wrong, the bump in the night is a warning to turn on the light and hide under the sheets, that shiver on your spine should set you towards safety.
It sounds stupid, and to people who haven’t ever seen the things in the dark it can’t ever be explained in a way that won’t get you sent to a madhouse, but the heebie-jeebies exist for a damned good reason.
And that’s just in plain vanilla mortals who have the barest of sensitivities to the supernatural. With a wizard’s senses it can be much worse.
I didn’t slow down as I started to check over my shoulders for any sign that I was being followed. It would be just my luck that wherever I had landed had some kind of expert tracker on hand for this sort of emergency.
Nothing seemed to be following me, but then again I was never a boy scout. I could have been surrounded by any number of things and not heard or seen anything until there were fangs around my neck, claws in my back, and my blood was soaking the forest floor. A fact that the Alphas had shown me multiple times over the years I had known them.
If anything checking over my shoulders and not seeing anything made the sensation of being watched all the worse. I could feel my hand tightening on my staff through the remnants of numbness from my earlier spells as the hairs on my neck damned near sparked and crackled with nervous static.
Quickening my pace, I started pushing my way through the thick undergrowth that hadn’t been this bad a minute ago.
Whatever was following me got closer. The rustling leaves moving despite a complete lack of wind.
I didn’t speed up again. I am a wizard, one of the wise, and one of the few to whom even the things in the dark hide under the bed when we pass. I just really didn’t want suffer the tender ministrations of the establishment after putting so much effort into escaping.
The butterflies I could feel in my gut were the result of skipping breakfast and lunch. I’d done too much on an empty stomach. Just got to remember that.
My metaphysical senses were fluttering under the pressure as I struggled to push them while avoiding outright opening the Sight. The last time I had done so in this sort of situation I’d learned the hard way What was following me, and spent hours gibbering. I couldn’t afford that in this creepy forest.
I stumbled as my foot caught on a snarl in the undergrowth sending me bouncing from tree to tree like a demented ping-pong ball.
But at some point I’d found my footing and sped up again. I wasn’t sprinting through the undergrowth, but it was damned near close enough to be just as dangerous. I could feel branches slapping at me through the spell toughened leather of my duster leaving invisible welts and thorns clawing at my short hair as I barrelled through the thinnest parts of the undergrowth. My legs burned as I barely managed to leap over a fallen log, only just keeping my balance when I heard something crashing through the undergrowth behind me.
I could feel whatever it was chasing me pressing in against my senses as it pulled closer and a wave of fear sent fresh energy into my legs as I tried to stop the distance between me and it from shrinking even more while I charged towards the first bit of good luck I’d gotten on this whole rotten trip.
Light shone down as I continued towards a break in the trees with hints of a clearing just beyond the thin cover of vegetation where I might actually stand a chance to spot something coming at me. The fragile illumination highlighting my goal as it grew closer, before, with a final herculean effort, I burst through the thin green film.
And my right foot immediately registered the fact that there was no ground underneath it.
For one gut-wrenching, heart stopping, stretched-out moment I got to live the life of Wile E. Coyote as I hung there in mid-air. Gravity ignoring me so long as I didn’t look down at the lack of support beneath my feet.
So of course I looked down. I’m an idiot like that.
I felt the beginning of the earth’s cruel attraction tug at me, my stomach lurching up in nausea before one of my flailing arms latched onto a leaning tree. My left foot scrabbled at the ground, kicking up clods of dirt and loose pebbles as I desperately struggled to avoid falling with what little purchase I had.
Which was when the presence that had been chasing me burst through the remnants of the undergrowth that had disguised the cliff I had almost plunged over and I felt myself instinctively drawing in enough magic to send whatever it was flying all the way back to Horsetown, United States of A-mare-ica.
The complete lack of anything physical put a stop that, and the creeping sense of irrational anxiety fled from my mind as a breeze drifted past me, carrying on it the distant sound of laughter and a smug sense of self-satisfaction brushed against my mind, before the presence disappeared into the treeline on the other side of the narrow gorge I was hanging over.
I didn’t let myself hang there for very long, the rest of me apparently having had enough of just standing there and letting my jaw flop at the raw strangeness of the things I’d been seeing. It was easy enough to pull myself back to solid ground where I just collapsed with my back against a tree as both magic and adrenaline drained out of me, leaving my legs and my mind shaky from the continued exertion.
I wasn’t even done when I could feel whatever the hell that thing was begin pushing against my mind again. Nowhere near as subtle as it had been to begin with, but it didn’t need to be. I knew it was here now. It could be as subtle as it wanted and it wouldn’t do anything against the fact that I knew something could possibly be manipulating me alongside the defences I could muster in response. And with all the psychic attacks I’d already faced, on top of the White Council’s current paranoia over mental infiltration, this thing may as well beat its head against Helm’s Deep for all the good it would do.
As such, I didn’t even need to fully recover before I felt my will focus and the questing presence recoiled back as my mental shields snapped into existence in my head. Walls of imagined stone and phantasmal fire cutting me off from the foreign presence in my head, and stopping any new fabricated emotions from taking hold.
My heartbeat had finally returned to normal while I focused on reinforcing my psychic protection and I stood up gingerly on stable, but still wobbly legs. “Well if it’s a chase you want,” I snarked to the presence that was still pressing against my will as I turned on my heel and started walking alongside the narrow canyon. “Meep meep.”
I staggered out of the bushes deeply regretting my earlier bravado.
Apparently whatever capricious will I had provoked earlier had taken my words personally and I had spent the last eternity avoiding every single lethal thing it could throw at me. From sudden sinkholes opening up under my feet, trees damned near falling on my head, patches of blue flowers that gave off one of the creepiest auras I’d felt growing into my path, to a fucking manticore the size of a minivan.
With such forces arrayed against me, it was no wonder I looked like I had been dragged through a war zone consisting of hedges. Mud was caked on my clothes up to the knees from a particularly well hidden quagmire, my grey cloak was torn and rent with claw marks, my brain felt like it was swimming in molasses after holding my mental shield for so long, and small scratches littered every inch of exposed skin I still had left.
And to top that all off, now the sun was going down, with me no closer to my new goal of escaping this fucking place.
I really did not want to be in this place once the lights went out. Forests in the day were nice enough if you didn’t stray from the path, or have to move too fast, or could avoid the wildlife. Forests at night were an accident waiting to happen without any of those things, add them back into the mix and what was a potentially lethal accident becomes an almost deliberate suicide.
Although, in my case, it looked like it was shaping up to be death via natural causes.
Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, I started glancing around as I tried to weigh my options. I could try to keep going until the sun went down completely and hope to escape before it was too dark. I could try and set up a camp here and now and hope that whatever had been trying to kill would let me sleep peacefully.
Or you could follow the path you’ve stumbled upon to those lights in the distance.
Or I could follow the path I had stumbled on to a set of lights I could see shining through the trees, and hope the Laws of Hospitality were a thing in this strange horse based dimension.
I looked down at the packed dirt under my boots, traces of old hoofprints going back and forth and finally realized what my subconscious had been yelling in my ears. I was standing on an actual man made path, the first sign of civilization I had seen since I stumbled into this place. I could even make out what looked like the flickering light of a fire through the thickening gloom.
So bad choice 1, continue into the forest even as night falls and risk being pixie-led to my death. Bad choice 2, try to set up a campsite and pray that I don’t get eaten while I sleep. Or bad choice 3, follow the pretty lights to potential civilization and hope really hard that the Laws of Hospitality still exist in this world.
I was spoiled for choice, I know.
I ran through my options again as I stood there, resting my weight on my staff in the thickening gloom and growing chill.
Minutes passed and the sun continued to sink as I thought, and thought, and thought, running each choice through my head and just coming up with what ifs, and potential pain. Goddammit, but I hated not having all the information I needed to make a choice. I was supposed to be the grand knower of dark secrets and ancient magics, not some idiot paralyzed into indecision over what pizza to buy.
It was the cold that made my decision for me, misty tendrils of chill seeping under my coat and reminding me of just how cold I was getting, just standing around and thinking. I’d much rather risk dying warm, than freezing to death piece by piece.
And so it was, with weary bones and squelchy boots, I set off down the path towards the light shining through the trees.
Turns out I didn’t have all that far to go. Maybe only a couple of minutes or so. The presence that had been making my woodland stroll absolute hell didn’t even press once against my mind while I was on that path.
It was a nice break from the confusion of everything.
And so when I reached the end of the path I couldn’t even muster up the strength of mind to be surprised when the confusion returned in full force at what I saw.
It was a fairy tale witch’s cottage.
Built into a tree bigger than my old apartment building.
Even with only the light from the windows and the pale glow of my pentacle I could see the bare outlines of stick figure fetishes and bottles hanging from each low hanging branch, twisting and dancing in the wind which carried away the faint clanking, clacking song of their collisions. Tribal masks I only barely recognized from a brief education with an African shaman cast their shadowed gazes across the clearing, their hidden eyes peering through the shadows as if the darkness was nothing but an inconvenience to them. Chill mist curled around the tree’s gargantuan roots, white fingers curling, grasping, snatching at the air as if driven by some insatiable will, hungering for life and warmth.
The entire place was trying so hard to be creepy—and I’m sure to anyone else it would be—but I couldn’t help but chuckle softly at the sheer kitschiness of everything when taken as a whole.
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something tired this way comes”, I muttered as I stopped in front of a door set in a space between two gargantuan roots, a single mask looking down from its lofty perch above the door frame, scowling at my shellshocked appearance.
Hopefully the hut’s owner wouldn’t be so judging.
I knocked softly before stepping back down the porch stairs and waiting for whoever was home to come to the door. I can’t say I was surprised when another ‘horse’ opened the door, although calling her a zebra would probably be more accurate considering the black and white stripes running across her coat. The dark lines mixing with the shadows on her face in such a way to highlight her piercing teal eyes while the flickering firelight bounced off the two golden hoops earrings she was wearing.
Neither was I surprised to see her holding a heavily ornamented staff, small charms, feathers, more potion bottles, and even a few slivers of gems hung from the twisted gnarled head. Although I was more impressed at the fact that it actually looked heavy, the collection of gewgaws and trinkets covering up shallow dents in the wood.
The fluffy pink bathrobe and slippers, however, were unexpected.
“What is this strange thing I see, a wanderer lost in Everfree?”
As was the fact that she started speaking in rhyme.
I tried to smile disarmingly, although it might have come out as a pained grimace as the zebra tightened her grip on the staff, and her eyes started to glare just a little bit harder.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you this late at night,” I started “I had an accident with a Way which dumped me out not too far from here and I staggered into the forest while I was still dealing with the aftermath several hours ago,” I gestured at my beaten, battered, mud-stained, scratched-up everything before continuing. “The forest has since done its level best to make sure I didn’t stagger out in one piece and come close several times,” I shook one of my mud covered boots, the action causing several clumps of dried mud to fall loose and thump against the ground far louder than they had any right to. “I spotted the light coming from your windows and decided to investigate in the hope of finding hospitality rather than risk continuing on in the dark or making camp and getting eaten as I slept,” I finished somewhat weakly, my free hand rubbing at the back of my head as the mare continued to glare at me.
“If the words you speak hold no lies, why do you refuse to meet my eyes?”
I bit my lip and looked away enough to avoid her forcing me into eye contact before I spoke. “I’m a wizard and the eyes are the window to the soul,” images I’d had to suppress over the years from the Soulgazes I’d been forced into, or accepted willingly, flickered across my mind making me stutter for a second. “I’m not sure if it’s the same here, but where I’m from if a wizard and another being with a soul make eye contact for more than a second or two it causes a Soulgaze where each see the other as they truly are, no deceptions, nothing hidden, every single ugly truth laid bare with complete clarity and understanding,” I paused, listening to the zebra mare briefly, waiting for some sign of acknowledgement or understanding before I continued. “And it can never be forgotten, a Soulgaze stays with you forever, no burying it under neuromancy, or having a spirit take it from your head, or any other little trick you can think of. They’ve all been tried. They’ve all failed, some worse than others,” I fought down the memory of Bob cheerfully telling me about the list of wizards who’d gone insane trying to forget Soulgazes that threatened their sanity, and losing it anyway as the methods they used all inevitably rebounded against their psyches.
I turned back to the mare, her expression slightly softer than it had been before “I’ve been told my Soul isn’t a happy place to visit and I truly wish you no harm. If you wish me gone, I’ll go and leave you to your peace.”
“If the words you say indeed ring true, there is only one thing for me to do,” I could see the brief tension as the mare’s free hand tightened on the door handle, preparing to slam it shut in my face.
Which is why when she stepped back from the door, pulling it as far open as it would go, I hesitated from sheer surprise. “Come in, come in, oh welcome guest, to share my bread and your hooves to rest.”
I staggered through the open door muttering my thanks, while I did my best to kick as much of the still not fully dried mud from my boots by thumping them against the ground and stairs before I tracked it inside. It wouldn’t help with the lumps dripping heavily from my jeans or coat, but I was making an attempt, poor as it was.
The inside of the Tree/Hut was, well, witchy would be the best way to describe it. A scorched, cast-iron cauldron hung above the lowly flickering fire pit in the center of the trunk’s main room, more tribal masks hung on the walls staring down at the two of us as I pulled my boots off and put them to the side. Potion bottles, jars full of nameless reagents, and beaten and stained leather bound tomes were almost spilling from the shelves that lined the two windowless walls. The only lone fortress of order was a worktable pushed into a ‘corner’ which had neatly piled stacks of notes, classical alchemy tools, and cleaning gear all arranged in a loose semblance of a mess that was threatening to spill from the wooden surface.
It reminded me, just a little, of the organized chaos of my own lab. All that was missing was Bob and his shelf of cheesy romance novels.
Almost lost in recollection I didn’t resist as the zebra led me to a pair of chairs that were hidden by a nook in the wall, a small ledge jutting out from the tree wall serving as a table, light coming from the fire pit and a group of candles half melted into the walls obviously all the illumination the mare needed as there was yet another stack of loosely bound books, scrolls, and notes in some densely packed script I didn’t recognize. The symbols swirled before my eyes as I tried to stave off falling asleep.
My reverie was broken as a bowl of some unknown liquid full of what looked to be vegetable chunks clattered down in front of me, a wooden spoon landing besides it, the Zebra mare sliding herself into another chair opposite mine.
“Before you eat, should our diets be the same, If you would be so polite as to give me your name?”
I poked at the floating chunks in the thick brown broth, “Harry Dresden, Ma’am.” I pulled a chunk of what looked like potato from the bowl, sludgy liquid dripping from the bowl of the spoon. “May I ask what exactly is in this? I may be an omnivore, but there are several things that I can’t handle.”
“Potatoes, grain, water, and beans, simple fare for simple means.” came the melodic response as my unoccupied hand started searching through my pocket trying to find the one item that would set my last doubts to rest as the mare continued talking. “I had intended it to be tomorrow's day olds, and I fear it is not palatable while cold.”
“Considering my day, I’m just glad to not have to forage in the spooky forest for my food” I chuckled slightly as I pulled my closed hand out of a pocket as nonchalantly as I could. “Do you mind taking a look at this for a second?” I asked before I held my hand out, an iron nail perched between my fingers.
An iron nail that she proceeded to scoop up with her bare hands.
There was no flash of light, no burst of flame, no unearthly howl of agony at cold iron’s touch. She just twisted her hand around to look more closely at it, while I shoveled the first spoonful of food into my mouth.
“An iron nail, to what end does this prevail?” The now decidedly not-fae Zebra mare looked at me, one eyebrow quirked upwards as if I was dancing around naked and screaming to the skies.
“If I said justified paranoia it would be rude, so I’ll just say it’s a very nice nail, expert craftsmanship, it aids me in my wizardly secrets, it was given to me by a friend, and it can be used to nail things to other things.” Her eyebrow continued to rise while I shoveled more food into my mouth. The lukewarm vegetable gloop somehow far more delicious than it had any right to be. Although I’m not sure if that was my empty stomach talking.
“The truth if you please, or from my home find your release” I could hear the quiet anger in her voice easily enough and I prepared myself for another watered-down lecture.
“Back where I’m from there’s a type of creature, they can look human enough if they want to, they can act human enough if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but they are not human” I picked up another chunk of vegetable in the bowl of my spoon. “The only surefire way to tell is that cold iron burns them with its touch.”
“These creatures that reject iron’s touch, you thought I was such?”
“Yeah, spooky magical forest, witches hut built into a giant tree, you don’t look human, and you asked me my name without offering yours,” I shrugged before swallowing the next mouthful. “The last time I made a deal with one of them she spent the best part of a decade trying to turn me into one of her hunting hounds for my own safety. Apparently, because if I was a dog in her kennel, then I would never have to fear the hunger, pain, or cold that I was walking headfirst into at the time,” I don’t know if the mare looked mortified the idea or scared at just how simply I said the words.
“In her own mind, twisted as it is, she was doing the morally right thing, but she would have torn my mind apart and ripped me from my life to do so.” I lightly picked the nail back up from her unresisting palm and quietly pocketed it. “And something as simple as sharing a meal is an agreed upon bargain to them, if you had been one of the fae, you could’ve bound me to your service for the rest of my life simply because I had eaten this food without offering something in return. Justified paranoia sound better now, Ma’am?”
The zebra mare was quiet as she glared at me, trying to tell if I was lying or not. Apparently for all her witchy wisdom she’d never heard of the fae, or their rules, and I was just too tired to be fully terrified by what that implied.
“And if I had been left burned, what lesson would have you then have learned?” I don’t think she really noticed as she rubbed at the palm where the nail had been sitting, but she continued to glare at me.
“If you had been one of the fae, you’d have never picked it up,” I let the spoon fall into the empty bowl, and fought down the rumbling of my stomach, its terrible hunger awakened by the first sacrifice. “I cannot state this enough, the fae, they aren’t mortal despite how close to it they can appear.” I looked away from the zebra, “If I’ve offended you I apologize fully, but I’ve seen the result of people who should have watched their words more carefully making and breaking bargains with the fae, it has never been pretty.”
Picking up the wooden bowl I looked around the room “Is there a sink where I can wash this, Ma’am?”
“Do not worry yourself, I shall deal with it, now remove your coat and once again sit.” Her staff thumped into my chest, stopping me from walking away before she pulled the bowl from my hand.
Apparently my confusion at her previous statement was obvious enough that she felt she had to explain to me while I stood there, my mouth half open at her command. “The Everfree is out there and not in here, yet you track it across my floor everywhere.”
I tried to puzzle my way through her words as my brain restarted until I heard a wet splat come from around my feet. The still damp mud quietly falling from my jeans and coat, enough of the stuff having fallen from me to create small puddles of quagmire mud everywhere I had walked in the Zebra’s hut..
“Oh, uh, I’m sorry, ma’am,” I stammered out an apology as the realization of what I’d done settled in. “Do you have a broom, or a mop, or just a wet rag, or…”
“Peace, if of my vengeance you are wary, then a morning's chores are all I’ll levy,” the zebra chuckled as she walked away. “Now hang your coat by the door, and cease its spreading defilement of my floor.”
I dithered for a second balancing my options, beyond any sort of doubt the coat was probably the best piece of protection I had at the moment and I didn’t want to give it up if I didn’t have to. She wasn’t Fae so the laws of hospitality were only as good as her word, if I fell asleep and she wanted to do things to me there was nothing but her own conscience stopping her. Hell if she wanted to do anything nobody here would miss me at all, just a bunch of Bounty posters slowly gaining dust. On the other hand, even explaining things as much as possible as I could, I had hardly been the best guest and living out here could only start at being difficult. If I kept the coat on she would be well justified to kick me out for ignoring her wishes.
It only took a second of deliberation for manners to win out before I shrugged the reassuring weight of my leather duster off my shoulders and hung it on the hooks she’d been pointing to, the act of shucking my mud coated coat apparently draining me of the last of my jittering nerves that had been powering me for the last few hours. I couldn’t even summon up the energy to be tense. I just slumped back into the seat, closed my eyes, and waited for my host to return.
“And now that dinner has been done, it is time for something much less fun,” the zebra sing-songed directly into my ear.
Hell’s bells. For something with hooves walking on a wooden floor, she sure could sneak. I hadn’t even sensed her get close enough to speak directly into my ear, making me jolt up into an actual sitting position as I forced down the magic I was about to pump through my shield bracelet.
“Though the Everfree has put you through the wringer, I cannot say you are free of its danger,” she continued while putting several potion bottles down, next to a roll of bandages, and a clump of cotton wool. “If left alone for too long a time, infection springs from dirt and grime,” the Zebra poured a some of the first bottle onto the cotton wool, the clear liquid matting down the white fluff. “First we must make sure your wounds are clean, then we’ll make use of the iodine.”
I didn’t whimper, and I will set anyone who says otherwise on fire.
My torture at her hands didn’t last all that long. Just long enough to clean out the scratches criss-crossing my face and exposed skin, before she dabbed each tear in my skin with the purple ointment of pointless pain, making sure that each small wound had a thorough coating of the vile stuff.
Charity would be proud.
After what felt like an hour of her ministrations, the Zebra mare finally leant back into her own chair. Thank god she hadn’t actually tried to bandage up the road map of scratches on top of everything else. The small field of matted and stained cotton balls was enough zebra witchdoctor hoodoo medicine for me, even the stinging sensation of the iodine was barely keeping me awake at this point.
It was enough for her as well as she yawned heavily before putting the stopper back in the, incorrectly pronounced, iodine bottle and sweeping the soiled cotton into a bag which was casually tossed into the now cold fire pit beneath the cauldron.
“And now that my task is done, I feel like resting until the moon is gone, your presence has kept me from my bed long enough, let us go and rest our heads on softer stuff.”
Blearily I followed her through a curtained doorway into a small bedroom that was surprisingly modern given the rest of what I’d seen so far, it even had an oil burning lantern rather than the dribbly candles that had been almost omnipresent in the main room. A single bed sandwiched between a writing desk and the gently sloping tree wall, its covers neatly pressed and clean as if it was on a display room floor and kept safe from the ravages of children bouncing on every available surface. Another bookshelf dominated the wall that wasn’t occupied by a closet and a curtained window..
Looked lovely and soft though.
Lovely and soft, and sized just for one.
Either the walking had woken me up a little, or the stinging iodine kept my brain working more than normal because I didn’t stop and stare before the question came to my lips.
“You don’t have a sofa or anything else I could sleep on?”
“I do not often have guests to entertain, such comforts are beyond my domain,” The zebra mare turned back to me as she spoke. The, now that I was actually looking, very definitely female zebra mare.
“Just a spare blanket and the floor then, that’ll be fine” I assured her in my most level and patient voice as I backed away slightly. “That’ll be more than fine, I wouldn’t want to impose more than I already have.”
“You are not only my guest but my patient too, to sleep on my floor would not be best for you,” she smiled sweetly even as she hefted her staff again, the bottles clattering with the slight movement. “Now off with your clothes and into the bed, lest I have to thump you upside the head.”
“Whatever happened to ‘first do no harm’?”
My only answer was an unamused glare as I did my best to avoid meeting her narrowed eyes.
“Can I at least have some privacy please?
“I doubt you have anything I have not seen before, but if you cease your backtalk I’ll do as you implore,” the mare rolled her eyes as she walked past me and back through the curtains, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘stallions’ under her breath.
I waited until the curtains had stopped rustling before I stripped down, and slipped into the slightly too short bed. The cloud-soft mattress starting to lull me to sleep almost immediately.
A sleep that was disturbed as I felt the zebra slide into the now cramped bed, her back pressing against mine as I almost instinctively squirmed towards the tree wall.
“Good night traveler Dresden, when you awake your chores will begin.”
Snores followed her murmured rhyme as she fell immediately into her dreams.
I didn’t have such an easy time.
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Congrats, on the second chaoter of this story. I love how you managed to portray the Everfree Forest as something terrifying as many stories tend to make the place feel harmless with only predators making it threatening. The way Dresden describes the dangers of forests and his cautiousness makes the scene at the Everfree be filled with suspense. Dresden's interaction with Zecora was entertaining to watch as I loved the dynamic between them with Dresden being a sarcastic man while Zecora is a down to earth zebra. The ending had me laughing due to Dresden feeling uncomfortable near Zecora. Overall, this chapter was well worth the wait.
freakin 3 chaps and already over 200 likes good job man havent read this chap yet though
Why do I feel that Zecora knows far more then she is letting on here. Let's see how she helps Harry out when he goes back to town.
i love it and can't wait to enjoy the next chapter!
Huzza for update.
It's always good to read some Dresden in action.
Good job with the rhymes, I know several authors who've taken the lazy path, but you sure kept on writing.
Damn you've made a forest seems more sinister than it is if you understand what I mean.
Excellent chapter.
The question is, what was the thing trying to get into Harry´s mind?
7736679
Old Everfree, one of the two Genius Loci of the Everfree Forest.
I'll let you guys guess at the second.
Very well done. Some punctuation quibbles but you really nailed the tone of Harry Dresden and his life of mayhem. I look forward to your next chapter.
Thing is Harry is likely a better guest than the ponies who visit Zecora usually are.
7736679 Tireck? The plunder vines? The evil that was purged from Nightmare moon?
7736685
Does Zecora count as "practicioner" regarding the Soulgaze? Not sure if Zebra´s magic is similar to Earth Ponies´, but with an added knack for alchemy.
7736868
I don't understand the question all that well, but if you are asking if Zecora can initiate a Soulgaze?
No, no she can't.
Ponies/Zebra's can't initiate Soulgazes as they lack a Wizard's "Sight". The magical sense that allows Wizard's to "see", "feel", "hear" or however they interact with magic (it's unique to each wizard, although 'Sight' is the most common sense).
The Sight allows Wizard's to strip away all lies and see the world for what it truly is, and they never forget what they see with that "sense". The soulgaze is a part of the sight in that "The eye are the window to the soul" and eye contact is an intimate act, so if a wizard looks in another being's eye for a second or two, so long as they have a soul, a Soulgaze is triggered, regardless of either parties consent, with all the same rules as regular usage of the Sight, no lies, no veils, no protection.
Pretty much all races in Equestria (and the planet) have souls so they can be Soulgazed, (although Ponies aren't mortals under the seven Laws of magic) however the only species capable of a feat similar to it would be the, now thought to be extinct, Olephants, who were said to have unflinching, unfaltering memories, and could take a person's measure by simply glancing at them.
Excellent~ Like others have said, you did a great job with Dresden's monologue about the forest. And yeah, I'll be curious to see how his meeting with Zecora will affect the plot.
7736685
7736764
I'd wager that the second Genius Locus lives in or is otherwise related to the Tree of Harmony, so that should go on the list5 of possibilities. That didn't seem very Harmonious, but Good is not always Nice.
Isn't this age difference suggest that Rarity get her cutie mark at twelve or theereteen years old? I'm pretty sure that it not the case with the canon.
Another excellent chapter.:D
The Chicago wizard is back!
I really don't know about this one. I mean, holy crap, dude. I've seen stories suffer badly from Exposition Syndrome before, but this is on a new level. You are talking and talking and talking about stuff that has no relevance whatsoever and will probably never matter, but you just keep doing it and then nothing ever actually happens in basically the entire chapter. You could have condensed this down to a quarter and nothing would have been lost. Dresden allows himself some wizardly crypticness sometimes, but he isn't that melodramatic.
And suddenly being this almost ridiculously forthcoming with information at a time where it's unnecessary, when not opening his damn mouth, at a time where it would've solved the problem, caused the entire situation in the previous two chapters? That's really going too far with it.
7737610
I would disagree with this. I didn't think this chapter had too much exposition. Sure it was an exposition heavy chapter compared to some, but that's necessary sometimes. I honestly felt that this chapter fit the tone of the story very well. It just wasn't a running magic fight. Having this story be a series of chapters just about Dresden throwing down with MLP characters seems shallow.
As for being unnecessarily forthcoming, you're right. He could have left and spent the night sleeping on the ground. Though not stated outright, it was somewhat implied multiple times that Zecora was letting him stay on the condition that he explained his situation. That is an entirely reasonable reaction in this case.
As for 'not being forthcoming' in the earlier situation, when? When he said 'I can explain' and would have done so if Twilight had stopped to listen?
I understand that some chapters can carry interest better than others, but these were very different situations. In both, he could have explained. But only in one of the situations did he have the opportunity to explain.
7737610
I disagree. Yes this chapter could have been shorter, but the exposition showed us Dresdens experience traveling through the woods. I can feel his exhaustion and hunger by the time he arrives at the treehouse because i experienced the journey. It wasn't in the form of an info dump, it was well written and engaging plot.
Dresden did try to speak to Twi and RD, but he was also defending himself (a smart thing to do when you find yourself on a whole new world). Dresden really wasn't overly forthcoming with Zecora either. He only told her the bare minimum about himself (lost in the Way and hungry and tired). Everything else he shared (soulgaze, cold iron and Fae, etc) are things that are common knowledge where he comes from. The guy has a hero complex so sharing info about the Fae to a helpful female stranger is very consistent with his character IMHO. This basic knowledge could save Zecora or someone else from a terrible fate down the road, and it served to appease the Zebra mare enough to keep him from being kicked out. Win-win I'd say!
7737757
I don't, honestly. The previous two chapters were a lot more immediate and less navel-gazing than that. It doesn't even fit the tone of the novels too well. That entire spiel about forests was just entirely pointless. Butcher will let Dresden go on a rant like that every so often, but it's always over soon enough and under the bottom line, there's always still a sense of positivity to those books. That whole "sleeping tiger" metaphor and whatnot. That kind of thing is why it's just urban fantasy, not dark fantasy. For every blood-drinking demon overlord, you get a swarm of pizza fairies. The series doesn't take itself that seriously and this story shouldn't, either.
He volunteered a bunch of information here that he really didn't have to. He could have just said "my kind of magic makes eye contact have a bad effect on people" in regards to the Soul Gaze thing and instead he sums up the Wizardpedia article at her. The test with the iron nail? "There are some very unpleasant, shapeshifting creatures that can't abide the touch of iron. I've had bad experiences and just wanted to make sure" would have worked. Instead, he starts going on about fairies (a word which would mean nothing to her) and how they can look like humans and blah blah blah.
Notice that she then never even asks what a human is.
7737812
1) Dresden isn't exactly discret, by wizards standards. Remember, he is the guy who offers his services in Chicago's phone book under the "W" of wizard.
2) Consider his predicament: he is lost, injured and exhausted in a malevolent enchanted forest popoulated by monsters, and there is some invisible entity after him, one who has already tried to trespass his mind. Zecora 's Hut is his only chance of survival, and he needs to convince the zebra shaman the weird looking stranger with the creepy magical aura is trusthworthy.
Also, as others have mentioned, Harry has only offered common knowledge (among the supernatural). Nor exactly his True Name.
7736685
Old Everfree: "Sniff, sniff... Not sure what is this thing, but it reeks to fire and many, many burned things. Better not taking risks" ( sends manticore).
7737927
I don't really care the slightest what it is he offers or how well-known it is, I care how badly it makes the chapter flow and how much it looks like pointless exposition for its own sake. None of this was important at the moment that it was brought up and could have been explained at a later time, when there wasn't a whole chapter that can literally be boiled down to "Dresden ran around a forest, then he found a zebra, then he had dinner, then he went to bed." The entire conversation feels stilted and unnatural. That is the problem.
There are times when it is appropriate to do that kind of thing, this was a situation where it was not. For one and a half months of writing, this frankly wasn't much of a chapter.
7737942
Yeah, I'm not much good at writing dialogue, and you do make good points for what I've written here, most of that month and a half was spent on the dialogue, just trying to make it sound as natural as possible, and, well, it's far better than what I had, but it's still not spectacular. Just good.
However I will defend what I've written with...
A) Harry is frazzled, he's not thinking one hundred percent straight, if he was he would have realised that the stew wasn't appealing enough to be Fae food, which is glamoured to be supernaturally appealing.
B) Harry has spent 2-3 years at this point trying to hammer these rules into Molly, who has trouble with self-limitation. he's gained something of an arrogant teacher's mentality in this constant struggle and he's prone to going into rants on the common dangers of magic when asked. A mentality which wouldn't break until Cold Days when what happens to her, happens to her.
C) The exposition would have had to happen eventually and this way I can set up something of a thrown-brick joke (not subtle, and it hurts your head).
7737391
I'll point at the AU Tag and start laughing then.
In all seriousness, does it feel like it may be a bit too much for someone under the age of 12-13 to have a moment of self-actualisation and realise that they want to dedicate their life to a particular study. So-much-so, in fact, that Des Tiny himself reaches down with a greasy finger and leaves his wretched mark upon them, removing from them true free-will, but giving them power and purpose.
Twilight (only semi-correctly) did that at the AGE OF FIVE!
I'd imagine that some of the ponies in Starlight's village of Equality are those ponies that gained their Cutie Mark's too early in life, over a childish hobby that they couldn't make work as an actual paying job, which in turn led them to working jobs they hate all in order to fuel a hobby that they could end up despising.
7737277
Ding.
And it's not that she's not acting at all, or doing anything to harm Harry or anybody in the Everfree. She and Old Everfree have an agreement.
He can't directly cause the death of any wanderers, but he can pull the Will-o-the-Wisp shenanigans and lead them to their own deaths, hence the fact that he had to mentally attack Harry in order to panic him, and then 'lead' him to the chasm, rather than just have a tree grab him and send branches through his heart.
She can't directly save them, but she can give them an out that they have to be smart, strong, skilled, or lucky enough to use. Like say a tree leaning over a chasm that somebody fast enough, or lucky enough to react to can grab onto and hang 'safely', rather than fall to their death.
7738151
You mean in your AU? :)
Because in canon she clearly older that five when this is happen (because her body proportions look like nothing like five years old Sweetie Belle).
7738171
HA! :D
Yes, good point.
We have no clue how old the Mane 6 are in canon beyond Young Adults (something I'd put in the realm of 18-29), but we can make a guess based on how old Spike acts (which I'd guess to be early to mid-teens based on how mature he acts (Baring "Secret of my Excess")), and assuming they are all the same age (maximum 29yo) then Twilight would be around 10-15 when she hatched him. Canonically.
I'd put them younger than that maximum age based on the fact that Twilight's learning how to properly socially interact with other people. Considering she did have "friends" in Canterlot up until she left, but demonstrated exceptionally poor social skills even with those guys.
Excellent!
I felt as if i was reading an actual Dresden book!
7738118
I have to correct myself there, by the way. It took you two and a half months to write that.
Yeah, I think I have to admit that this is a big part of the problem I had with the chapter. I'll stand to my opinion that it wasn't well-handled exposition, but the bigger problem is just how much of the chapter is eaten up by it. I am not joking when I say that I feel those six thousand words could easily be pared down to two thousand without losing anything much, really. What dialogue you have that isn't Dresden going into lecture mode is fine. The dialogue in the last two chapters was fine! There just isn't enough of it here.
To be blunt, I'm wondering if you had anyone edit this for you. I'm personally guessing that you hadn't. A good editor could have helped you shape the exposition into something that feels more natural and fitting for the events of the chapter. A better one would have told you to scrap it and write something that actually progresses the story instead. It's never pleasant to have to say that kind of thing, but I've had to do that once or twice and I always felt the story ended up better for it in the end.
7738171
I think that one is canonical, actually. Someone showed me a twitter post by one of the writers a while ago that says Spike is six years younger than Twilight, or something therabouts. She was young when she got hers. Cutie marks aren't something that ponies get as teenagers, it's something little children do.
7738399
She a six back then? Maybe. But she definitely not five because we see five years old Sweetie and her proportions completely different from Twilight at the entry exam. Five years old Sweetie looked more like a slightly bigger Cake twins while Twilight looked more like smaller CMC.
Upd.
Actually not that long ago Big Jim suggested that Spike are at same age as Twilight. Which is don't make any sense at all.
7738405
Point was more, if it's a difference, it really isn't a very big one.
7738382
We can reeeeealy roughly estimate AJ age. In the "Where the Apple Lie" AJ already a teenager and by WoG Apple Bloom at this point of time not yet born (same WoG suggested that AJ parents busy on conceiving Bloom :)). So if we take lowest teen age at 13 and take widely popular Bloom age at 10-11 this is put AJ around 23-24.
But again it all really rough estimate that based on lots of "if's".
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
7736493 Cause everyone likes a smartass wizard that tends to set things on fire
7739683
Hear, hear! *Quaffs mug of tea*
As a minor fan of the lore of the Dresdenverse, doesn't he get Winter's Mantle soon canonically? Makes me wonder whether she will decide to come visit the locals or whether Harmony will wind up trying to turn him into her own tool. Or Discord, when he gets let out. Poor Dresden, stuck attracting the attention of major players.
7745017
Mab probably won't randomly come chasing after Dresden just to offer to make him her Knight again; at this point in his timeline she's done that before, he's refused, and she has no immediate reason to think that just ending up in another world will change his mind. (It took a lot of highly personal motivation for him to finally cave in in canon, and since at this point he doesn't know either that he even has a daughter or what the Red Court's related master stroke is supposed to be he doesn't really have that yet.)
Might still eventually come looking for him because he does in fact still formally owe her a favor or two (I forget which) at this point and the Fair Folk take such matters seriously, of course. And speaking of upcoming canon events, he'd better make it back to his own world in time for those if this story doesn't plan to address them itself because otherwise a number of people he cares about back home might just flat-out die while he's away because they'll be specifically looking to him for help and he won't be there, and that'd be kind of a downer.
7748230
I have a plan, heeheehee.
You'll have to wait, fuufuufuu.
Also it's only one favor that Harry owes Mab now; the first was Summer Knight, the second was Small Favor, and the deal was for Favors Three.
7748230 Ah, thanks for explaining. So Mab in the future for favors, possible dealings with Fallen and so on not relevant for now, and currently no Outsider influence. Also, bet on him being late because ponies? Followed of course by Dresden basically declaring one man war on everything that would attack Maggie.
7769626
It's like I tried to subtly hint at something being wrong, and instead I set up a neon sign saying "HEY EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS! CHECK OUT HOW WRONG THIS IS!
I'm not good at subtle.
7781265
"Subtle" and "fine irony" rarely fare well on the internet.
How is the next chapter going?
7872856
See 13th Jan, 2017 blog for "Slowly"
Yes I cite myself because I'm weird like that, deal with it.
7872882 As long as you are working on it that's fine by me, this fic is to good to die.
7911847
Part of it is I "enjoy" editing/proof-reading.
Even looking to set up editing/proof-reading commissions as a "copy-editor" at some point this year.
This digs into my writing time, and inspiration, as I'm using up a lot of care-calories on helping other people achieve the highest standards they can, but damn if it isn't satisfying to see a good story get better because I helped. And other people can deal with the whole "social attention" thing.
Looking at the character tags I can't help but feel Sombra is going to try and summon something truly horrendous to gain power such as He Who Walks Behind.
I also can't help but want to see Harry's reaction to the ponies when they spontaneously break out into song and dance and not just song and dance but spontaneous choreographed song and dance
Harry's fw
reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/confused.gif
7952623
Or he gets dragged into one.
I do kind of have one half-planned, but it's not for a while, which gives me plenty of time to work on the lyrics.