Wanderlust
Some ponies simply can’t be in one place for too long without going a little mad.
It is a pony such as this that we find in the gentle wilderness of the far east, in the lands of the deer, of the endless forests with twisting ravines and raging waterfalls. This lone earth pony is one of those with the itch, the wanderlust, the call of the horizon.
He takes what he imagines is an easy path through the trees. He is in no apparent hurry.
It has been said that the Unicorn Tribe once roamed these lands, once built their towers of stone among the trees and rivers. It has been said that the nomadic deer tribes clashed with the unicorns, used their own magic to cast strange and powerful spells on the arrogant ponyfolk. It is said that these spells may linger.
It is said that these forests are enchanted.
Our earth pony has no fear of the forest, enchantments notwithstanding. He has travelled wide, seen much. Look and you will see his saddlebags bulging with harvested food, his pack heavy with useful equipment. He can cook, he can whittle tools, he has rope, he has a large and sturdy tent. Presently he pauses to consult a compass.
The wind passes over the canopy with a placid, muted roar. Here among the cliffs the forest is dark, the sun difficult to spot. It is a maze of waterfalls and boulders. One might wonder how a pony could expect to navigate such a place at all. But the little chestnut wanderer, apparently satisfied with his heading, carries on with purpose. His blood-red mane catches what little sunlight filters through the leaves above.
Ahead of him, the walls of rock loom tall. There is a way to navigate between them, if a creature is clever and observant. One would hope that our little pony is both.
Not only because of the cliffs.
There in the forest the earth pony pauses. His ears swivel. Head cocked slightly, he walks more slowly in the direction of the nearest cliff face. There is something different about the forest, here. Something… quiet. Quiet in the way that makes you pay attention. The way that suggests the world has stopped breathing, somehow.
We see the wanderer emerge into a little clearing, here against the cliff face. It’s cool here, and utterly still. And yet, it seems he can hear something, something coming from a crack in the wall.
No, crack isn’t the right word. It’s a crevice, a huge split in the rock, a dark rift with that special hollow feeling that seems to suck at you, drawing you forth into the caverns within.
The pony stops, there in the clearing. Seems to think for a moment. Takes off his larger pack, sets it down, consults his compass once again, and takes a map from his saddlebags with his teeth. This, too, he consults at some length. He glances along the rock face at the point where two cliff edges seem to meet, or almost meet. Then he looks up at the sky, squinting into the sun which is soon to dip below the plateau before him. It’s past noon.
He seems to come to a decision.
We watch as he puts away the map, the compass. Cocking his head, again, he starts toward the crevice. You can hear it, now. There is a hollow hum coming from somewhere within the darkness. No— a note. A slow, ponderous melody.
Somewhere there in the black of the caverns is an unknown source of what could almost be music.
It is said that these forests are enchanted.
Nevertheless, the wanderer wanders inside.
For a while we cannot see. We can only hear. The pony seems to be following an internal guide, an inscrutable sixth sense. We hear him pause every now and then, take a new direction, or huff as he carefully hops down what can only be small ledges there in the blackness.
This goes on for some time.
The music—for it is now unmistakably music—is growing louder now. It is a melancholy sound. The flute? Perhaps. Slowly the notes cascade over each other, drawing us forward, guiding the little pony onward.
There is light, now.
The chestnut pony with the red mane finds himself descending what can now be seen as a stairway. Gentle, flickering torchlight guides his hooves from below. He sees a doorway.
He knows there is no danger, no immediate danger, leastways. His wanderlust would not guide him to this place were it otherwise. He crosses the threshold.
The chestnut stallion finds himself in a little library.
In the middle of the library is a table, and on the table is a gently glowing white crystal. The music is coming from the crystal. As the music slowly comes to a stop, the glow does as well.
It is at this point that we, and the little pony, notice another pony in the room.
A unicorn.
His mane is white, his coat is grey. His eyes are red. They sparkle at the sight of the newcomer. He lowers the flute from his lips with his red-tinged magic.
“Greetings, wanderer,” he says.
The crystal glows when he speaks. The voice comes from the crystal, not the pony.
The unicorn smiles. The wanderer gives a small smile in return. For a moment they say nothing more. Then the earth pony looks around. The walls are stone, as befits a cave, but the shelves are wood; they look as if they were persuaded to grow right into the rock. It is, somehow, rather cozy. There are comfortable-looking chairs. A modest rug. A hammock can be seen deeper into the little cavern. There are magical torches encased within glass.
“What is this place?”
The unicorn does not answer immediately. First he carefully sets aside the flute, and steps up to the middle of the room, beside the table, to regard his visitor more fully. “Before that, friend, pray allow me to introduce myself. My name is Spellweaver. How might I address you?”
“I call myself Pathfinder,” the earth pony says in return.
This earns a raised eyebrow. “You ‘call yourself’? What do other ponies call you? What, pray tell, did your parents call you?”
“That’s not important.” Pathfinder shakes his head. “They— I chose my own name. Pathfinder is who I am.” He looks more sharply at his host. “Who are you?”
For the briefest of moments, a dark look passes across the grey unicorn’s face. Before it can be noticed, he smiles again and bows. “I am a humble spellcaster in the court of Princess Jade. Or… I was. It has been, I think, a very long time since then.” He gestures at the library about him. “This has been my home for… what might be millenia.”
If this is shocking to Pathfinder, he does not show it. “How did this come to be? What is the nature of this place? Why are you here?”
“I am here to tend my library,” Spellweaver says simply. “I have been… enchanted. Cursed. I never hunger, I never sleep, I have all the time in the world to study magic or read the novels in my collection.” He pauses sadly. “The deerfolk saw an opportunity to give me an… ironic fate. Their spellcraft is strange. I fear I am here forever. Even Princess Luna could not deliver me from this place.”
Pathfinder glances at the crystal. “Why have I never heard of you? It seems that, if you cannot leave, the princesses would find a way to help in other ways. Send you company. There are many like me, out in the world, exploring. They would come.”
“Ah, a clever pony. Yes, ‘twould be a blessing. But nopony can leave here with knowledge of my plight. When you leave this place all memory of it will depart.”
“Hm.” Again, the revelation does not seem to shake the adventurer. He looks around again. “You have many books, but I imagine you tire of them by now.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the unicorn says, nodding toward a large shelf that almost reaches the roof of the cave. “I have a special bookshelf over here. Tales of adventures far and wide. I never tire of these. I even come by new ones, now and then.”
“I grew up in a library,” Pathfinder supplies. “I always did like the adventure epics, myself.”
“Oh?” Spellweaver says. “What is your name, wanderer? Your true name?”
Suddenly the earth pony is backing away. “I… I’m leaving.” He turns, walks to the door, pauses to look back. “I’m sorry.”
***
The chestnut stallion picks up his gear. Why did he set it down? Merely to stretch and eat a little? Yes— he must have done. The sun is beginning to dip below the top of the plateau; it’s coming on to late afternoon. He has an odd feeling this isn’t right, but shrugs it off.
The earth pony feels a strong desire to get away from the strange crevice in the cliff. Something about it makes him nervous. There must be an underground river causing strange echoes within the cavern. It’s funny— it almost sounds like music.
For some reason, as he sets off, munching an apple, Pathfinder finds himself thinking on his father’s library back home. He wonders what his life might have been like had his parents had the power to keep him there, like they wanted, reading about grand adventures rather than going in search of them himself.
He shivers. What an awful life that might have been.
Some ponies simply can’t be in one place for too long without going a little mad.
⠀
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Hmm. Your writing style and dialogue are good, and it's a pretty good horror premise. If I might offer some constructive criticism, I feel your story will be stronger if you present more in the actual story. The most important information isn't in the story itself, but in the synopsis and the author's note. There aren't enough hints about the deerfolk making it hard for ponies to find the cave IN the story, so we don't get a real sense of how unique it is that Pathfinder found his way there (at least, this was what I assumed you meant when reading your synopsis). And not being able to even guess that Pathfinder would turn into a book without it being explained in the author's note really detracts from the story. I think if you could incorporate more hints of these natures so that the story is self-sufficient without the outside notes, it would be much stronger.
(Upon rereading, I can guess more from the ending line what you were implying about Spellweaver. Still feels a bit vague, but there is more of a hint there than I gave you credit for.)
9818275
All great points! Maybe someday I'll come back to this and re-write it with all of that in mind. I wanted to add a lot more to the point where Pathfinder figures out he has to get out, make it clearer and darker, but that's when time was up. I could have fixed it in post, but I like the integrity of the one-hour challenge.
This was supposed to be the "...uh oh" moment, for the record.
9818384
Oh yes, that's quite fair, and for being written in an hour I'd say you did well. ^^
Wonder whether Spellweaver does it out of malice, or because he's lonely, or he doesn't and it's the nature of the curse.
9818394
Holy crap, I'm reading all this again knowing the danger and just going "ooooooh"
I will continue to reiterate that this was so good for an hour and that it deserved my spot in the finals
Nicely eerie stuff. I wasn't clear on the full consequences of sharing one's true name, but I know enough folklore to know that's rarely a good idea. Thank you for this.
9818482
Nah bro.
It deserved CiG's spot.
9818421
Thought it was about the Pathfinder. You mean, it appies to Spellweaver as well?
9818631
That's exactly it. Did Spellweaver start entrapping ponies and turning them into books right away? No. Probably not for a very, very long time; long after accepting his fate. But after long enough, the need for new entertainment can... well. Drive a pony mad.
9818544
Unironically true
I would've voted yours over Jaxie's and mine too
While becoming books wasn't obvious, the threat of telling your true name is a very real thing. I'm suprised it wasn't the deerfolk (fae) trying for it.
Alondro enters the cave, "I am Charles Abdul Habubaka Bdjaro Roberto De Charleroy the Fourth, Lord of /b/ and King of Trolls."
The evil bookshelf just kinda… explodes... as it knows it cannot contain that much BS in one place.
The curse is gone! So is most of the mountain... it's reduced to a smoldering crater.
I saw this story mentioned in a blog and I had to ask. Are there monster mares (or a singular monster mare) in this story?
Very nice story! You wrote this in an hour? That's pretty amazing, and requires some well exercised skill.
Rather than offer any criticism of my own, I'll address the one offered by River Babble and maybe give you some contrast for you to make what you will. While the criticism is sound, I don't think it needed any more hints or explanations - and there was a solid two hours of chores before I read the synopsis and opened the story, and the moment I actually read the story, so I'd completely forgotten the synopsis (other than 'deer' were mentioned, as I was tryna get some inspiration on deer for a fic I might be writing).
I feel that Pathfinder being lured into the cave doesn't need to be that particularly 'unique', and the siren song drawing him in is already supernatural enough. I appreciate the subtlety in the whole thing (really gives you that sense of ancient magic that 'lingers' as you describe it, like a memory, which never has the same intensity as the event itself) and think it was the right call. River Babble is right in that we can't really guess the whole 'being trapped as a book' outcome from the story without the final explanation, but again, I don't think we need to. I found the unicorn's insistence on the getting the pony's given name and his brief change of expression at being denied was enough of a warning, and then the italics in 'true name' coupled with Pathfinder's reaction made it very ominous. I wasn't able to guess your intent as an author, but it was pretty clear to me that Pathfinder revealing his name would've been disastrous, and that gave me a sense of tension and genuine uncertainty as a reader that I appreciate. (That said, the final note on what the consequences would've been is a nice 'bonus' track.)
I have to admit I'm not a fan of the 'we see' angle to the narration. It's really a matter of personal likes, no real criticism, maybe that's your style and that's fine. It did give it a certain "documentary" vibe to the story at first? But it kinda was gone for me form the moment he enters the cave, and I didn't particularly miss it. Writing a story in an hour is a challenge though, the present tense helps getting through drafts quickly and it was a convenient way of conveying perspective to the narration, so it's got its merits in context. I'd probably do away with it if you ever re-write it though, but that's your call.
Overall, I really enjoyed the story. Also, if I do end up writing my thing with deer, do you mind if I maybe had a character make some off-handed, very indirect nod towards curses and ponies trapped in forgotten caves or something, towards your story? It's just such a cool lil' tale you wrote here.
10619906
I'm so glad you enjoyed this! And of course, feel free to take any ideas or make any references you wish. I'm unlikely to do anything more with this, so it's nice someone is deriving a bit of inspiration from it.
9818275, 10619906
I came here from a reading which didn’t have the author's note, but I caught on to the turning into a book thing around the time Pathfinder did. It seemed perfectly well hinted at on its own.
Also, I love it when a horror story is legitimately spooky, but ends more or less happily. Thanks for this.
11470612
Thank you! for a long time I thought I was going crazy; almost everyone seemed to be saying they didn't get it-- that's why I added the author's note
11470666
Well I thought it was perfect, but apparently my sister caught nothing! She dismissed the true name line as a coincidence!
She really ought to have known better.