The Hag, the heroes, and a few other things

by Amaranthine Thought

Finding Happiness 2

“All right girls, listen.” Twilight said.

“If you never pester me about Hag’s being a good pony, I won’t bring up that I… all right! Fine! She’s a good pony! I don’t really care anymore!”

Spike watched in amazement and a healthy amount of boredom, the magical writing utensils next to him still jotting down endless notes into piles of paper larger than he was. The CMC had put their hooves down and though it had taken, he looked at the clock, eight hours of argument consisting of ‘yes she is’ and ‘no she isn’t’, they had gotten Twilight to back down.

“Can you just begin again? I promise I won’t interrupt at all unless you need to clarify.” Twilight said, fatigue written on her face.

The three fillies nodded. They each took turns telling of their time spent with me in the Everfree. The way I kept them from harming themselves during their recovery, and the way I spoiled them rotten during their original week.

Sweetie had loved my lessons in knitting and excitedly told Twilight a surprising amount of knowledge considering her inability to knit a sock. She also included my cooking lessons, and my ever patient attitude with them.

Scootaloo told her of my ‘flying lessons’ (I was making it up as I went, and Twilight knew that very soon) and my efforts to teach them to clean. I had taken the time to study her wings and had told her whatever I knew about birds (and made up a fair bit) while I tried to use my powers to remedy her problem (which she translated as me pulling on them to make them grow).

While she was getting better, I needed to spend a lot more time on that before she could fly for any stretch of time.

Applebloom told her that I never let her grow bored or upset, what with her being bedbound while her friends spent so much time learning and creating disasters without her. She had also been able to tell, at least somewhat, how I had healed the trio with my herbs and remembered what I had said about this plant or that. Twilight had been puzzled, not knowing of any mix of plants that could speed healing. She even remembered the thorn vine which Twilight didn’t know about, thank the spirits. If she knew its normal properties she might have thought I had tried to poison them. She told her how I had helped her so much when she finally could walk again, and had been endlessly concerned over them all during the entire ordeal.

All three remembered the treats I baked for them, though they did not remember the names of my dishes. They remembered me like a family member, one that had taken them in and held them closer and more affectionately than any mere stranger. They told Twilight of my teachings of the woods, and the tests I had made them take. Sweetie Belle even still had one to show her.

My information was entirely foreign to Twilight and she had asked them for more of the same until they told her nearly everything I had taught them. I wish I could have seen her face when they told her about my timberwolf remarks, and their near perfect memories of the one I had rendered docile for them to study.

“An then we came back to town an went back ta our homes.”

“Rarity had been so happy, but when I told her about Miss Hag she got really mad…”

“Same here. Applejack blew her hat clear offa her head.”

“We know she lied,” Scootaloo said, “But we’re certain that she had a good reason for it! She took care of us after all!”

All three nodded once more and looked to Twilight who was exhausted. They had arrived at lunch and now it was far past dinner, the moon in the sky. Spike was snoring where he had fallen amidst piles of paper produced by her magical scribes.

“That’s all girls?” she asked blearily as she eyed the piles of paper, dreading having to go through that bulk.

They nodded again. “All right, go on, I don’t need to hear any more.”

“Bye Twilight!” they called as they left, bright and chipper, into the night.

Twilight groaned as she shifted through the papers. Unless the girls had met a completely different yet identical Hag, her problem had just grown more complex instead of simplifying like she had expected it to.

She had anticipated that I would have let slip something to show her that I was evil to the girls, and instead she got a picture of a pony who anypony would adore as a mother or grandmother. The girls even slipped up from time to time and called me grandmother during their tales.

But the girls had also told her about Discord’s visits, and how I would indulge his behavior. That helped to support the idea that we had worked together to break the elements. More than a few of my child rearing methods struck her as wrong as well.

That was the same throughout their tale. Something to proclaim my innocence and good nature followed by something to tell her that I was evil. Twilight couldn’t understand and groaned as a headache made itself known from the conflicting information.

Resolving to sift through the piles with the rest of her friends tomorrow she went to the sleeping Spike and picked him up. She hoped that a good night’s rest, or somepony else’s thoughts, would render this clearer than it was right now.

---

Rose Bush was 32. She had been dumfounded when I told her my age, and told me I looked no older than 70. I enjoyed it, being seen as young.

She had met her husband when she had been 17 and married him at 19, moving to Leaffall at the same time, and her child was born when she was 30. She wasn’t able to tell me what took so long to conceive, only that they had tried to have a foal before then.

Her husband died a few days after his son’s birth, some accident. Her son had passed when he was two, leaving a grieving widow even more grief-stricken. She had not returned to Leaffall after her husband’s death, and she had barely dragged herself out of bed after her son had followed him.

You would never know it by the chipper pony that followed me now. She sang, she skipped, and she loved the flowers that covered the woods. She pointed out particularly beautiful blooms and remarked on the colors of fall, running through the piles of leaves with the energy of a foal.

She would also often magic roses from the very air. There was no rose bush when I looked and when she stepped into the woods she would return with several blooms that would make a weak heart weep for their beauty.

She called it her talent, and what her cutie mark stood for; finding and raising roses. I called it witchcraft, but didn’t press too hard. They were very beautiful flowers.

She was ignorant of the woods, and often cited my grounded fears as groundless, plunging headlong into the bushes and traipsing amidst flower circles without heed.

It never happened, but fey love those kinds of woods. I always got jumpy around bright groves of flowers, lest they turn out to hold a population of fairies. Any circular group of flowers might be a fey circle and if they were, Rose Bush would be gone faster than I might be able to save her, off playing with the fey.

I hadn’t calmed down after the last dozen jumps into a suspiciously circular field of daisies, and I never would if I had a choice.

The time I didn’t look would be the time that the fey were there and I needed to be aware and ready to act to save her from that fate.

It was sometimes awkward traveling with another. I was used to the company of the forest and spirits, not another mortal walking next to me. She had nearly thought me mad when she caught me conversing with the forest. I had managed to convince her that I really was talking to the trees (I got one to bend over and tap her, got a good laugh at that trick) and she had been endlessly curious ever since. The remark that it was my cutie mark had only spurred her on.

I told her some things about hags. Small inconsequential things like how hags lived in the woods and were normally older mares, but she always listened like I was giving her a grave secret. She would always wish me good night when we laid to sleep, and she would always help me to lay upon the… things the… sleeping bags, that was it! The sleeping bags that she had brought with her when we laid to sleep.

It was annoying, really! She treated me like one would a greatly respected and loved elder, helping me whenever she thought I might require her aid. I should be the one doing that to her! Not the other way round. But she liked doing it, so I let her.

“Rose!” I cried for the ‘I don’t know how many times’ time as she rushed into another field of flowers. The ponies apparently planted them along the trail, but I didn’t trust that all of them were built by mortal hooves.

“Come on Hag! I already told you no tiny insect is going to whisk me away! Enjoy the flowers while we don’t have snow!”

“Fey aren’t insects” I muttered as I passed, her following after me, trailing blooms, not responding to her comment about the snow.

Apparently the weather in Equestria was made by ponies, pegasi to be specific. That nagged at me, but Rose Bush had been unable to understand my preference for normal weather patterns. We were due for snow in two days, and it would take us three days to arrive at Manehatten after two days of traveling down this road already.

“Sometimes I just don’t know how you think Rose Bush.”

“You just need to have a little fun.”

The forest told me before they came into view. A trio of large humanoids were coming our way.

“Get behind me Rose.” I told her, watching the forest for their arrival; they were heading toward us with intent.

She did so and we both gasped when three (three!) juvenile drakes swooped into the clearing and landed not far from us.

They looked like men the way they stood upright and like teenagers from their leers; full of themselves and sure of their health. Still, dragons! Three healthy drakes that would allow me to gather three sets of the rarest gifts and regents known to mankind without the danger of trying to gather from a full grown dragon.

“Ha!” called the largest, standing over twice my height (about six feet I think) and far bulkier than myself, “I knew that there were ponies here!”

His voice was aggravating. It sounded like he had a stopped up nose. And he reminded me of the raiders that had slaughtered my people too and I glared. “I suppose we can find some fun here, right boys?” he said, smirking.

The other two nodded and all three approached, certain that we posed no threat to them. Rose Bush didn’t. She was whimpering and trembling behind me, hooves over her head, but they were in for a nasty surprise. Nastier than it honestly had to be; they brought up bad memories.

When the first reached out a clawed hand I slapped it away. He was stunned for a moment until I punched him, putting the strength of the forest behind me until my blow must have felt like a bull had run into him. He flew back to collide with a tree with a loud crack, the tree falling over from the force and he slumped against the new stump.

The other two turned to look and I jumped one of them, landing like a boulder and impacting him into the dirt. The third saw this and took off before I could get him as well.

“Wait a minute!” I called after him, “I want your scales too!” the woods whipped at him, trying to prevent his leaving for but he managed to get away. “Spirits curse it!” I yelled as I stomped the dragon I stood upon. It yelped.

The dragon under me groaned. I looked down into his eyes and they shrunk at my angry expression. “You two are going to have to do. Now just hold still,“ I whispered to it, smiling wickedly, “and we can have some fun.”

Rose Bush had been understandably unwilling to help me descale the stupid beasts, especially when the first had screamed so much. I had gotten nearly four pounds of scales and the pair of horns off of the big one even if they were tiny. I would have gotten more, but Rose Bush’s horrified, sick expression convinced me to let them live.

As we were continuing onward Rose found her voice again, “How did you…?”

“Get them like that? I ask the forest for its strength and then I pummel them. Strength to lift a full grown bull and the power to crack stone for a little bit of time.” I sifted through the scales, “This one is bad, spirits take it.” I said as I tossed a cracked and thin scale away.

“Well, I certainly feel safer now.” Rose said in a wondering tone, “But what are we going to do with so many dragon scales? And did you really have to take them all? It seemed… painful.”

I looked at the mass again before putting it away in my pouch. “With this many we could even create dragon scale mail for protection, if I can find a needle strong enough.”

“Are we going to?”

“Probably not, unless we find somepony that could use it. We can use this bounty for other things if we don’t. I can think of a few potions that call for dragon scale, but this amount was far beyond what I had anticipated finding in my life.”

“What about the horns you… ripped off of the other one?”

“Those are going to hang on my wall until I need to bribe somepony.” I said with certainty. Spirits and men held dragon horns in high regard; I could bargain for a lot even with that sad example of horns.

“Just when you think you know somepony.” remarked Rose Bush, smiling as she shook her head.

“I didn’t even know you like to hum endlessly until you decided to leave everything and come with me. Still don’t really know Rose Bush, the pony that can find the impossible rose bushes.”

“They are always there! You just can’t see them like I can!”

“That’s right.” I said, “I can’t. Let’s hurry up, I don’t want to get caught in that snowstorm for too long before we reach the settlement.”

She nodded happily, my meaning entirely missed. “Manehatten is a city, not a settlement.”

“Same thing”

“I can’t wait to see your face when we pass out of the woods and see it.”

She knew something I didn’t, she was smirking. Cities were what people called towns that got big enough to receive trading caravans. They contained maybe a thousand souls, sometimes more. What would Manehatten be? Some kind of dream realm where the impossible became real and you could see the endless numbers of the living march before you?

---

I was back in my pine forest on the mountainside. Snow fell from the sky as I fed my fire, boiling leather from a boar that a hunter had given to me.

I was dreaming.

First, I stirred my pot with hooves to grip my stirring stick. Second, the trees near me were far too uniform and I was humming that catchy tune that Rose Bush had been so enamored by. Third. For whatever reason the moon was growing HUGE in the sky and getting bigger.

I stopped stirring and looked up to it. With a sudden flash an alicorn appeared from the celestial object and flew toward me. It had a dark coat and an ethereal blue mane that flowed over its shoulders, with a simple tiara on its head and a crescent moon cutie mark.

As it approached it roared, the voice bending the trees with its volume, “We have found thee Hag! Now surrender and come peacefully with us or suffer our wrath!”

It walked in dreams, looked a bit like Celestia who I was afraid of, and talked both in plural and with a strength beyond any set of lungs. I knew what I was dealing with.

A dream eater.

They were nasty things, slithering into people’s minds and giving them nightmares, trapping their victims in an endless sleep until they eventually withered away. This one was stupid if it thought this scared me, but they weren’t to be taken lightly. Thank the spirits my teacher had taught me how to deal with them.

I didn’t rise up to meet it in combat, as that would be useless. Instead, I focused on the dream itself, taking great care to gain perfect control over it. It was my mind and I could command it far better than the monster.

It was tough, I’ll give it that. Took my greatest thoughts; fighting off the frost giants, and braving the biting cold of the frost dragon. It fought me with grace and power, but was unable to combat so much. I had seen far too many horrors and powerful beings for it to overcome. I made them worse too; this was a dream after all.

It fell at long last and I dismissed my mind’s defense before they could defeat it totally. I walked up to it and smirked before turning around. I took great delight in bucking it, screaming, back into its moon and yelling, “Try that in life and I’ll rip you into three equal parts!” as it went.

Wish I had known better. Would have saved me some pain and a lot of effort later on.

---

I didn’t tell Rose about the dream eater when I awoke and we continued on, making good progress and watching the snowfall when we prepared to sleep again. One day of marching through snow, wearing boots and scarves provided by Rose Bush and I completely failed to withhold my expression upon seeing Manehatten. Rose just kept laughing and guided me forward toward…

I had no words for the sight and still find myself a little speechless at the memory. Buildings towered over me like the mountains, and countless ponies crowded the streets, more lives than I had ever seen clustered together and that was only in the one area. Carts that Rose called ‘carriages’ ran in the middle of massive streets paved with stone of some kind, light emanating from buildings that had a pane of glass ten times larger than any glassmaker could produce for a giant front window. Everything was lit and I didn’t know how.

The sound and noise was deafening, and the sheer size of everything was terrifying. No forest was nearby, no spirit for me to lean on. I saw nothing that I could name and, for the first time in my life, I was terrified. I had stepped into a dragon’s lair and stood brave, but there? There I was lost. I was alone in a place that denied my understanding.

Rose had taken my reaction as endless amusement until I had just stopped and refused to move or answer her call. She had taken one look at my face and called for a carriage, getting the driver to help my stiff form aboard, and making sure that she was next to me at all times.

I do not remember the trip. I am certain that if Rose Bush had not been by my side I might never had awoken from that. She was by my side like she had known me for her entire life, keeping me close and trying to calm me with her humming.

I regained consciousness in the softest bed I had ever slept on, the blanket thick and soft and made of a material I couldn’t identify. I failed to see Rose immediately and grew panicked.

“Rose!” I cried with an uncomfortable amount of desperation.

“I’m here, I’m here!” she called back, entering the room from the far side and rushing to the bed. “Are you all right Hag? You just stopped… everything after a while and you wouldn’t respond.”

She put her hoof on my shoulder as I took several deep breaths, her presence calming me. “I… it's… spirits curse it.” I said, pushing myself upright and standing next to her atop a fuzzy floor. As if someone had been making a sweater and then decided that the floor looked like it needed one too. I didn’t like it at the time.

“I just got displaced Rose.” I said, feeling weak.

“Displaced?”

“There is nothing in this city I had ever seen before, and even the sheer number of lives… I had never been somewhere this unknown to me and I am afraid of it. Scared beyond reason. Displaced.”

Rose didn’t respond, waiting for me to finish. “But I need to be here, I can feel it in my bones!” I looked to her. “I need you to teach me Rose.”

“Teach you?”

“Teach me how to navigate this place. I cannot name a single part of this city, and I can’t trust anypony else.”

I pinned her with my gaze, equal parts piercing and pleading, “I only got you to help me Rose Bush. Please… help me.”

She was stunned for a long moment before nodding. I sighed and relaxed slightly. I hadn’t needed someone to tell me anything since I was 30, and now I was once again dependent. Uncomfortably so in this case.

“I… I can Hag! Don’t worry! I am sure that we can learn about Manehatten so well that we can travel it like we lived here!”

I jerked. “We can learn…?” I asked in a hollow voice.

Rose nodded, ignorant of my growing apprehension. “I’ve never been here either, so we can learn together! That way you won’t feel helpless!”

To my eternal shame I whimpered and leaned on her like a foal needing comfort. It took her several hours of holding me before I was my old self once more.

Do try to understand. That place was as far from where a hag could be found as it could be. I was somewhere else, and everything that I found familiar was not in Manehatten. I stood in a place larger than I could imagine just by looking out of the window (which also gave me vertigo. How were we so high!?) and I knew nothing. It was even worse than the white places. At least they were empty and didn’t look so endless.

Fortunately Rose was not entirely unlearned and got me a map which didn’t help and a guidebook which did. The map only emphasized the vast size of the place, as if giants had built it instead of ponies. The guidebook cut it into manageable sections that I could understand and know far easier. Rose suggested that I plan a route for us to take tomorrow and commented that I might enjoy the park. I set to the task, determined to find my path in this place before too long.

Ever since arriving there had been an itch. I was on the track of something, and it was here in this impossible place. I would learn its secrets and travel it like I traveled my woods. I would find what nagged at me so, and hopefully it would be one of the elements that I searched for. I would not be defeated by that place.

Disheartened, discouraged, lost, and even terrified by, but not defeated.

*** An hour before Hag and Rose had arrived at Manehatten***

“Come along girls, get ready!”

“Jus hang on fer a minute Rarity!”

The six bearers of the elements, Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, as well as Spike and the CMC stood upon Ponyville’s train platform, preparing for a long trip. Rarity had hit upon this idea that a change of scenery was in order after the mess that the girl’s interview had left behind. To say that it was chaotic would be like saying that bears didn’t really care if you kicked their cubs.

Most of them were upset and unsettled by the new revelations from their sisters. Tricked by me to believe that they had been injured, or actually attacked by timberwolves? Tied to the bed? Made to eat some random plants that I had dug up? Rarity had just about fainted and Applejack was certain of my evil. The rest of them were undecided yet, Rainbow erring evil and Pinkie and Fluttershy hoping that I wasn’t. Twilight couldn’t make a decision.

Rarity had suggested that they leave the mess behind for a few days and go to Manehatten to calm down and let tempers cool before continuing. The new information had caused some anger amongst the group, and they had agreed, needing a vacation from finding out shocking things about me.

The relationships between Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow and, respectively, Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and Scootaloo were straining under this new information and taking some time to forget their troubles and remind themselves how they cared for another would help them all Rarity thought.

So she had gotten ten tickets to Manehatten the same day and got her friends together so that they could spend three days in the city, away from the headache inducing work that Twilight had produced.

“This really is a good idea, even if it is Manehatten.” Rainbow remarked as she boarded with Scootaloo.

Rarity nodded happily and then frowned when she spotted Twilight lugging around several notepads and a bag full of quills and books.

“Darling! I thought I said to leave that behind. We are supposed to be relaxing, remember?”

Twilight looked up. “Oh! I did Rarity. This is my element research, so that when we retrieve the elements we can fix them!”

Rarity was less pleased that Twilight had found a way to bring work with her, but it wasn’t about me so she let it pass and boarded last, eager to see the big city again.

And so, in good spirits and a determination that this was going to go well, they traveled toward my own location. It was an… interesting few days to say the least.

Comments

[WhoHacksFTW]

I wonder why this story isn't getting much attention. It's really quite unique and well written. I'll be sure to keep reading and following it until its conclusion.

[Wolfren]

Oh fer heavan's sake; this is gonna be really awkward.
Great as always, very fascinating psychology with how you wrote Hag seeing a city for the first time.