Trickles 2 - Memory Sound

by Glen Gorewood

Threads of Memory Part Two

Ponyville - Early Evening, 6 days after Nightmare Night.

The library is bustling with the last customers of the day. Despite the recent disappearances ponies still visit the Golden Oaks Library for books of all kinds. Zecora having taken up Spike’s duties is finishing up the bookshelves as Twilight helps the last few ponies check out their selected literary works. All day the customers have offered their wishes that Spike be found alive, making the unicorn mare all the more anxious for the open business hours to be over so she can discuss the possibilities of what happened with Zecora.

Despite sending a letter to Celestia via mail, for without Spike’s dragon fire she must rely on traditional postal methods, Twilight believes that her zebra friend holds the key. As she checks out the final book of the day for an unusually anxious young filly, she breathes a sigh of relief. Using her magic, she turns the newly placed sign on the library door to closed as the filly leaves. The sign is something she added so as to ensure nopony would disturb her while she focused on finding out what happened to Spike. Today, of all days, she is grateful she did this. For part of Zecora’s conditions for sharing what she knows is that nopony but Twilight Sparkle overhear their discussion.

With the library officially closed, Twilight Sparkle moves over to the reading table and settles in a chair to wait for her friend. Her worry for her missing assistant is written on her face as Zecora, having finished with the bookshelves, takes a seat across from her. The two sit in silence for a few minutes, both lost in thoughts of recent events in the past six days. Neither of the mares wants to be the first to speak despite their agreement earlier that day. It’s as if speaking would begin the casting if a spell that will change things forever.

At last, unable to hold her desire to learn at bay, Twilight Sparkle asks the first question.
“So Zecora, you mentioned you would help me with information concerning beings and creatures not mentioned in books.”

The zebra shaman nods, responding as calmly as she can. “Indeed I did, ask me what you wish to know, for I will try my best to answer. It is quite odd being unable to speak in rhyme after so long of a time.”

Twilight giggles a bit, the tone one of pain and repressed sorrow more than joy.
“Alright then, what do you know of creatures that could make ponies disappear without a trace?”

Zecora leans back in the reading chair, a thoughtful and pensive look on her face as she reflects on her knowledge. Reciting from memory, she lists off the beings she can recall.
“There is the font of legalin, who can absorb one to never be seen again. The dancing grass can swallow you whole, the wandering weeds will devour your soul. Beings from beyond can spirit you away, and in the byways a mad god holds sway. In Everfree alone there exists, a wandering wagon that leads to an abyss. Great Gorgona will turn you to stone, and the Embrana can turn you to coal dust and bone. The great Sirenia can entrance you with song, and many more can cause things to go wrong. Puca’s will trick and Lepreni will steal, an Adze would gladly make you it’s meal. My friend there are many creatures that I know, too many to list before the fall of snow. Please specify what you wish to learn, we do not exactly have time to burn.”

Twilight stares at Zecora eyes wide.
“You just rhymed.”

The zebra stares back with eyes wide in shock, for it seems she can still speak in rhyme but only when recalling something. Only when reciting a specific type of memory.
“ That is odd, it seems I can still rhyme when speaking from my memories. If so then why can I not do so normally.” Her voice filled with confusion, the zebra has a feeling that there is a reason for this odd situation. Something important that she cannot recall.

However she is unable to ponder on it more, as Twilight Sparkle asks her next question.
“Maybe we should narrow down the creatures some more. What beings do you know of that can take a pony or dragon without a trace, and maybe melt or dissolve physical objects?”

Zecora closes her eyes, recalling what she can.
“There is the Temperance, but they would turn one to ash the color of silver. Leona would leave some trace, massive paw prints akin to a large cat. The Shradna would leave glittering dust in the air, the Trancelings might manage it but they do not melt objects merely lure sentient beings astray to the world beyond. Maganair could be a culprit, but there are no volcanos or steam vents in the area. Most acidic beings leave some visible trace in the surrounding area and are unable to fully control their abilities.”

Twilight leans over, eyes pleading as she begs. “Please Zecora, there must be something that could do this. The guards said that there was what looked like traces of deep blue liquid of unknown origin on the cart. Would anything you know of leave that behind?”

Zecora still deep in thought, clenches her jaw. She knows the answer to this, the creature that fits all the criteria Twilight Sparkle has mentioned. It’s a type of Fey, a very dangerous one. One so dangerous that even the non shamanistic Zebra tribes have stories about them back home. Yet each time she tries to think of the name it’s like something is blocking it from her mind. It’s right there, barely outside of her mental grasp. She focuses harder, forcing her will to break down the barrier in her mind. She speaks aloud the tale of old as her memory returns, flowing free from the dam that had been blocking it within her psyche.

“They only appear once a year..”She begins.

The sound of wet footsteps echoes outside the library door.

“Be wary for they have earned the fear..”

A sound like slithering, slippery, talons lightly grasping the door handle outside can barely be heard.

“In the forest they flow, a living fiend of liquid might.”

The door to the library opens, both mares are so caught up in the discussion they do not notice as a quiet rushing sound akin to water crosses the threshold and the door closes with a click.

“Be wary of those bathed in water on that night.”

The footsteps move closer, a trickling sound like a dancing stream can barely be heard. The footsteps are small and light, like those that belong to a young creature or pony.

“They can take any form, liquid fiends of horror borne..”

The footsteps stop behind Twilight Sparkle, a shuffling sound like nervous feet starts to gain the unicorn mare’s attention.

“Listen for the sound of streams, where no such thing can be. Monstrous fey with no name, we describe them by the sound they make.”

A cough causes Twilight Sparkle to turn her head towards the sound. Upon seeing the figure behind her she gasps, as her eyes well up in tears.

“Trickles down the path they go, they will hunt you if you know.”

Zecora opens her eyes, relief flooding through her mind as she feels a weight lifted upon uttering the name of that creature. That relief is short lived as her eyes settle upon the sopping wet purple and green baby dragon her friend is reaching for. A sopping wet baby dragon that she distinctly remembers seeing six days ago on Nightmare Night.

A baby dragon who came to her hut with three young fillies, who turned out to be anything but what they seemed to be. The baby dragon who with the other three, was really a horrific creature of liquid woe in disguise. A creature whose name she has just recalled, that chased her through the woods and devoured an innocent changeling. A creature so horrible that she begged her friend Twilight Sparkle to use a spell to block the memory of it from her mind.

Because if she so much as remembered a single thing about the creature, it could find her.

It could hunt her.

It would devour her, and all others who knew of it.

Because memory is the thread that ties it to this world, to her, and allows it to remain past the dreaded night. Zecora gasps in terror upon realizing what she has done, the horrible deadly mistake she has made tonight.

As the zebra mare sits frozen in fear, Twilight Sparkle can’t help but reach for her beloved assistant. Her eyes tearing up and blurring causing her to miss the watery ripples in his form, thinking them tricks of the eye. She speaks in a voice filled with relief and joy, the kind one uses when speaking to a loved one thought lost forever.
“Spike..you’re back.”

The dragon smiles, tilting his head ever so slightly to the left so as to better see the terrified zebra behind the unicorn. He responds in a voice that seems almost identical to the baby dragon, except for the light sound of trickling water that echoes from his jaws.
“I am.”

Twilight puts her hooves to her chest, beside herself with relief. She does not hear the sound of the carriage landing outside, or the frantic hoof steps of a panicked alicorn. Blinded by an unnatural focus on the baby dragon she cannot hear the pounding on the door or the orders being shouted to check on the other elements who had also lost somepony six days before.

She only has eyes for Spike, his body shifting slightly as if made of a liquid mirror.
“I’m so happy you are back. I missed you so much. You had me so worried Spike!” Twilight Sparkle nearly shouts the last part, though the dragon seems unaffected.

His grin merely grows wider, unnaturally so, as he responds with a voice that is filled with the trickling that has haunted the other mare in the room for six days.
“Why were you worried?” He asks the unicorn.

Twilight backs up a bit in shock, somewhat hurt by the comment just made by what seems to be her assistant and brother/son.
“What are you saying Spike?” She says in an unnerved tone.

The baby dragon tilts its head even more to the left, it’s neck seeming to ripple and stretch as it does so.
“Because..” It says in a voice like liquid silver, holding the word as if waiting for a reaction to finish what it wishes to say.

Twilight slowly realizes that the creature standing before her is not her assistant. Backing up faster, she is suddenly caught in the grasp of a trembling and terror stricken Zecora. Both mares stare with wide eyes, filled with the knowledge that they are trapped by that thing, as its body ripples and distorts into a mass of living liquid that defies logic and could drive any lesser minds mad.

And in the center of that liquid, Spike’s head remains visible as it speaks the rest of its sentence with a horrific sociopathic calm.
“You are going to become one with us.”

The monstrosity known as a Trickle rushes forward towards the two mares, it’s form melting the sofa between it and its prey. Seconds after it makes its move, an explosion of wood fills the library as the venerable door to Golden Oaks is blown to smithereens by a great nova blue aura. The great wave of blue and silver looms over the unicorn and zebra, the sound of a roaring river echoing in their ears like a waterfall of impending death.

A flash fills the location where the two mares hold each other in frozen terror as their doom is but seconds away. So close is it that they can feel the immense fey aura the Trickle exudes, and one of them can sense still more. For within that aura, lay the souls and minds of uncountable beings screaming and shrieking, trapped within the amorphous liquid mass that is their prison for eternity. A prison that the zebra mare accepts, will within seconds take her and Twilight Sparkle as its latest victims.

Closing their eyes, Zecora and Twilight wait for the inevitable. Only for seconds to pass with nothing happening, nothing but a change of sensation upon their senses as a cool night breeze ripples across their fur. Opening their eyes enough to see but not let in the sights beyond their eyelids completely, they are stunned silent.

The two mares are no longer in the Golden Oaks library where seconds before they faced certain doom. They now sit on the hill over Ponyville under the light of the moon. As their eyes open fully, taking in the scene before them, the alight upon a recognizable and welcome figure standing before them.

Midnight blue coat and ethereal mane made up of stars and constellations flowing in a nonexistent breeze, Princess Luna stands before them with concern and relief reflected within her eyes. As the Alicorn Princess of the Night and Dreams moves towards the two mares, their sense of relief is shattered once more as they recognize the fear in her expression. Lowering her head to look both mares over, Luna sighs in relief and worry.

“We were not too late.” She says, her eyes glancing in the distance towards the Golden Oaks library from which a stream of silver blue can be seen flowing into the streets of Ponyville.

Twilight Sparkle, shock wearing off of her traumatized mind, is the first of the two to speak.
“Princess Luna? What are you doing here?” She says in a voice still tinged with the terror of certain doom.

Luna turns her head, the ethereal mane of stars billowing about her head like a dark sun as she replies.
“Ensuring that our friends are safe from the fey kept on this world past Nightmare Night by the threads of memory. It seems we barely made it in time, and now there are two survivors.” She says the last word with a tone of sorrow, as if there is something about surviving the liquid monstrosity that is worse than being devoured by it.

Zecora shakes her head, her memories of Nightmare Night clear as they were six days ago. “Princess of the dreams and moon, what do you know of the liquid doom?”

Glancing back as the creature makes it way through the streets below, as if following an invisible trail, Luna frowns. Turning to Twilight and Zecora she responds. “We wish we had time to explain, but we must make haste. Follow me, we will explain on the way.”

As the princess of the night walks past the two stunned friends, her body shimmering with the power of the night; both mares get to their hooves to follow her. The trio moves swiftly over the fields, towards the Everfree Forest where it all began. A race against time has begun.

Though they move swiftly on three sets of four hooves, through the streets of Ponyville and up the hill beyond a sound can be heard. As the horrific abomination of a fey stalks its prey, following the threads that are visible to its otherworldly senses, a sound can be heard echoing across the land.

The sound of a trickling stream of water.

Author's Note:

Now the hunt begins anew.
Liquid woe is on the loose.
Princess Moon and Survivors two,
Find the truth or meet your doom.

There is one final chapter left, will Zecora and Twilight escape their fate? Or will Luna’s efforts be in vain? What of the Gate? What is its role in all of this?

Find out in the final chapter of Trickles 2 - Memory Sound.

If you like this story, or favorite it, feel free to click the like button to let me know.

Glen Gorewood

Comments

[Flutternight]

8526497
Thanks and I think I will.

[Flutternight]

Definitely a great addition to the story. ^_^

[Glen Gorewood]

8528275
Thank you, I’m going to publish the final chapter tommorow due to time constrants related to real life.
I have had this series planned out for over a year, I’m glad you like it and hope you enjoy the ending of this part of the series.

Glen Gorewood

[Flutternight]

8529022

You're welcome and I know I'll love it.