Legends of Equestria: Hesturland

by The Blue EM2

Sing me a Song of a Lad who is Gone...

NOTE: This chapter was written, and is set, before the imposition of a National Lockdown in England and Scotland. Do not attempt what Tom does in this chapter, as all unnecessary travel has been banned to prevent the spread of Covid.

It will surprise you little to hear that Tom was headed northwards and away from his native England. There was a simple reason for this. Owing to the circumstances that were gripping his country (and indeed, the entire world), he wanted to ensure that his family members in other parts of the world were well given the covid pandemic and the chaos being wreaked by politicians dithering over every conceivable decision they could make. What a surprise. Tom had a relative on his father's side who lived in Glasgow, and he was about as Scottish as they got (in fairness, Tom's surname was the name of a Scottish town not far from the border). No, this relative could trace his bloodline all the way back to Robert the Bruce, and possibly further if such records were found to have survived the storms of ages and marauding English armies (history is written by the winners, you know).

Tom had never really explored Scotland. There had been a previous trip where he had got very close to the border, but hadn't actually made it over the border as it wasn't in his remit. The borders can be a very quiet place, but Tom had been planning a trip to see some of the lowlands before the chaos hit. Now, he was driving up to see if Uncle Macallister was in good health, and have a chance to see him in case everything went pear shaped again (as there was a high likelihood it was, based on all the students who lived near him behaving like idiots). As Tom drove up the West Coast, pausing first to take a break and get a hot drink, and second to do some quick trainspotting as the M6 and the West Coast Main Line doubled each other between Preston and Glasgow, he switched on his car's audio system to see if there was anything worth listening to. Or hear. I suppose the latter is more likely.

After listening to a few seconds of out of tune bagpipes, Tom switched to something else. It was bagpipes in tune, with an orchestra. This was worth listening to. It was over in about half an hour, and then the news switched to something else.

"We now speak to William Fraser, head archeologist at Vindolanda," said the reporter, who belonged to BBC Radio Cumbria. "Mister Fraser, thank you for joining us."

"It's an honour," Fraser replied. "Thank you for having me on."

"Mister Fraser, please tell us about this remarkable artefact you found."

"We discovered it whilst doing excavation on the northern barracks at Vindolanda," Fraser told the reporter, clearly quite proud of what they had found. "We knew that weapons and other military equipment have previously been found in that area, including the only complete original suit of lorica segmentata in the world."

"Lorica Segmentata?"

"That's the main armour that Roman soldiers wore. This newest discovery came amongst a large pile of broken parts and pieces from pilum and other artillery weapons. I was digging through some of the dirt when my trowel suddenly hit a metal object. I began to clear the dirt aside and found a golden object within the pile."

"And what was the object?"

"It was a shield from the 4th Century AD, so towards the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, but that wasn't what was fascinating about it. The shield was perfectly preserved and incredibly strong. It had not only survived in the ground in perfect condition, but it was completely undented from our archeological work. Later on, when one of the students accidentally scraped it, there was no trace of a scratch anywhere. I would normally be hesitant to say it, but the shield appears to be indestructable."

"Older listeners will remember that report of the discovery of a remarkable shield in Vindolanda, which has unfortunately gone missing. Well, William Fraser and his team have recently made a new discovery; the ruins of an old Norse village dated to the 9th Century at the foot of Arthur's Seat. We turn now to John Macallister, chief excavator on the Steinhove project."

Tom tuned them out and looked at the road signs. If he turned off now, at Carlisle, he could make a detour across the country to Edinburgh, visit the site, and then drive on to Glasgow and still arrive on time. "Let's do it," he smiled, and set off down a minor road towards Edinburgh. He had some things to see, after all, but little did he realise things were about to go wacky again.

---

It took a fair amount of driving, but Tom finally arrived at the archeological site where the village had been found. It was all reminisiscient of Yorvik, the ancient Viking town that had been discovered lying underneath the city of York. But this was an unexpected development. Somehow, the name Steinhove seemed familiar to him. But he went in to see what was going on.

The area was a flurry of activity. Men hustled and shouted, moving heavy objects around, and they were hard at work digging things up and stabilising ruins. None of the buildings stood any more, of course, but their land and plots could be clearly discerned with the naked eye, making them easy to find. Nearby, a man was being interviewed by the BBC.

"Why is this discovery so extraordinary?" the news reporter asked. "Didn't the Vikings settle much of Scotland?"

"They did," the man, presumably an archeologist, replied. "However, this find is extraordinary as it's the first evidence of a permanent Viking settlement on the East Coast of Scotland. Up to this point, we had no evidence that the Vikings settled here. That's not the most odd thing though."

"What is the odd thing?"

"Many of the skeletons we've found are of ponies, and not ones native to our islands. This would suggest that the Vikings had the capability to export horses."

---

Tom found himself standing over the ruins of an old building, and was about to move onwards, there being nothing to see or interpret, when he suddenly saw something sticking out of the ground. He bent down to look at it. It was a small, dull, grey shield, the paintwork that once adorned it having long since faded from both the affects of time and age. Knowing not to touch archeological objects, he began to walk away.

A voice suddenly spoke loudly, but in a language Tom couldn't understand. The shield blasted him with something, and threw him into the pit nearby. "Oww," he groaned, sitting up as he did so. "What was that?"

He suddenly came to horrified realisation. He was no longer speaking English.

As he tried to process what was going on, he noticed most of his clothing had vanished. But this was not to be an issue, for as his body shrank to a lanky frame, he was covered entirely in blue fur. His nose and mouth stretched forward to create a muzzle, but of a smooth, curved shape, rather than the blocky muzzles most stallions had. A lighter blue patch of fur ran up the middle of his face and nose as his ears shrank back into his head, followed by them emerging atop his head like satellite dishes.

"Argh! What Sassenach would do something like this?"

The bottom of his jaw and the area round to his neck gained a small orange beard, and his hair grew wild and also orange, just in two tone (he also gained purple eyes). Part of it grew down the left hand side of his head, and was secured with a metal braid at the bottom. His neck stretched upwards as his shoulders and hips reshaped to accomodate pony limbs, and there was snapping all over the place as his limbs reset to put him into a quadrapedal stance. The remnants of his shirt remained, now a brown jacket with fur lining on the 'arms'. His lower legs were covered with brown cloth, presumably to protect against the elements. A black sling attached itself into place around his neck as the shield from earlier bolted into it. His hands and feet morphed into hooves, and a symbol of three interlocked triangles appeared on his flanks. To conclude proceedings, a two tone orange tail popped out of his rear, symbolising his changes were complete.

The magic from earlier, seemingly still around and well, levitated him onto the pathway he had previously been on. "What in the world?" he asked, looking over himself. "Ach! The hills be astoonded! I'm Rockhoof! Though I suspect 'Flinthoof' would be a more appropriate name, given how skinny I am..."

His attention was suddenly drawn to a crowd of people looking and pointing. He couldn't understand them, though. "Hello?" he asked. "I dinnae unnerstan' a word yer sayin'!"

Suddenly, somebody said something in words he could understand. "Are you one of the villagers?"

"I suppose you could say that," Rockhoof replied. "But I wasn't a few moments ago. I was a mere human, who had the misfortune of comin' across magical objects."

"This is all very strange," said the person. He then turned to translate what Rockhoof had said. He then turned back to Rockhoof. "Suddenly, learning all that Scots Gaelic came in handy. My parents thought I was crazy for learning it, but it sure has been helpful!"

Rockhoof grinned. "Slanche," he replied. "It's nice to know some of the old traditions are kept up these days."

There words were interrupted by a sudden rumbling in the distance. Much of the rest of the crowd were suddenly pointing in alarm, talking amongst themselves, and showing visible fear and concern.

The city of Edinburgh sits at the base of Arthur's Seat, an ancient extinct volcano formed millions of years ago from magma and geological uplift. There was supposed to be no activity from the mountain at all. That was what was so concerning, as without warning, the ground began to shake. Massive boulders flew through the air, landing all over the landscape, burning incredibly hot and melting the ground where they landed.

"I hope what I think is happening isn't happening!" shouted the Gaelic speaker. "Because that shouldn't even be possible!"

Rockhoof realised what was going on, as he had seen this happen before. "Get back!" he shouted. "Get back, all of you, as Arthur's Seat is-"

Before he could finish his sentence, what had been thought to be impossible happened. For the first time in 340 million years, Arthur's Seat erupted, a massive cloud of ash spewing from the top of the mountain. Lava began to flow down the sides of the mountain and run towards the city of Edinburgh.

Warning sirens began to blare all across the city, telling people to flee as fast as they could. People ran for their lives, trying to outrun the lava (which was flowing extremely slowly). Given there was no warning, the city didn't have a chance as a pyroclastic surge slammed into it, carrying buildings along like toys and sweeping them into the river.

Rockhoof looked on in horror as the remains of his village and the neighbouring city were swallowed up by lava and molten rock. He was powerless to stop the ensuing chaos, and tried to run as fast as he could when the flow caught up to him.

One moment he could breathe, the next he was being overcome by incredibly hot fumes. He could feel the heat burning him, and eventually he could go no further. He was to die here, stranded in a pony body, with no way of being saved or rescued.

"You don't get to die just yet, laddie!" said a ghostly Scottish voice. "You have important work to do!"

There was a flash of bright light, and Rockhoof was no longer there.

Author's Note:

Hello there, and welcome to this story! This tale concerns Rockhoof, the last major male character to be introduced for this series. Apart from being a male character (and therefore not being possible under JimmyHook19's own TF rules), I've always found Rockhoof to be an entertaining character; the only Pillar to get his own starring episode, no less.

He's also a Scotsman, so that's a win in and out of itself.

The man speaking Scots Gaelic is loosely modelled on my brother, who can speak Scots Gaelic and is highly unusual as an Englishman who can speak said language. 'Sassenach' is one word from this language, often used as a perjorative expression for somebody from England.

Comments

[JimmyHook19]

Excellent start :3

[The Blue EM2]

10690710
Thanks. Anything particularly stand out at the moment?