Eternals

by Shaslan

Chapter 4: Journeying

The days drifted into weeks as Tulip led them onwards. She and Luna were well suited as travelling companions. They talked constantly. Luna was eager to learn everything Tulip could teach her. Tulip showed her how to read directions from the brightest stars, which were usually clearly visible, depending on the cloud cover, and never moved. Luna learned that they were not heading due west, as the wolves had been. Tulip was travelling to the north-west, and she explained that they would turn to the north-east eventually — they were tracing a large circle around the edges of something Tulip would only refer to as the Brightlands. Luna tried several times to tease out from Tulip what exactly the Brightlands were, but Tulip would only shudder and shake her head.

“They say talking about it can catch its attention,” was all she would say. “So I never do.”

Each time Tulip gave this answer, Luna was perturbed by the slightly ominous description, but chose in the end not to devote too much thought to it, and instead focus on more immediate things.

She was skipping through the grass at a slight remove from Tulip. The swish of the stalks against her outstretched wings was lovely and she smiled as she went. She hopped and came down with a little thud, and turned grinning to look for the dark pink mare.

Tulip was frowning down at a bare patch of soil, which showed a smattering of tiny purple mushrooms, each covered in miniscule tentacles that shuddered in the breeze from Tulip's twitching tail.

"Luna!" Tulip called without looking up. "Don't go far. Something's not right here.”

Startled at the worry in Tulip's tone, Luna hastened over. "What is it?”

Tulip gestured with a forehoof at the mushrooms, careful to avoid touching them as she did. "There shouldn't be anything like this so far west.”

Luna leant closer to sniff at the strangely mobile fungi and was startled to be pushed sharply back by Tulip. "Don't touch those!”

Luna, too shocked to resist, let herself be thrust backwards. She looked up anxiously at Tulip, who had never seemed even remotely angry with her before. Had she done something wrong?

Tulip was still entirely focused on the mushrooms, her eyes locked onto them. A shudder ran down her body and she backed carefully away from them, before turning to Luna. She knelt so that her front half was low to the ground. "Up you get, Luna. We need to cover some ground fast.”

Luna was puzzled but did as she was told. As Tulip clambered back onto her hooves, Luna peered over again at the mushrooms. As she watched, one of them pulsated and turned bright red. For a moment, the air around it seemed to throb, a tiny wave of wrongness, and Luna felt a little sick. The red mushroom now looked less like a mushroom, and more like a ball of severed bird's feet. Luna looked away from it, her heart thumping faster than it should. This was not a plant from the beautifully ordered world she and her sister had so carefully sculpted. Nothing they had made would behave so.

Tulip moved off at a canter and the fast pace made Luna unsteady. She wavered for a moment and then slipped. Her belly hit Tulip’s back and she tried to hang on as best she could with her hooves. Tulip glanced back at her, but rather than slowing her pace, she moved faster. Luna bit down on the lower part of Tulip’s mane and felt her breakfast lurch within her as the mare’s rocking gait sped up into a gallop. Watching the grass whizz past beneath them made Luna feel worse, so she clenched her eyes tight shut and focused on hanging on tight.

When finally Tulip halted, Luna slid headfirst off her back and hit the ground with a moan. Her cheeks were more green than their usual blue-grey, and she had to press a hoof to her mouth to stop the vomit. Wincing, she swallowed. She might still be getting to grips with having a digestive system, but she knew things were meant to go into her mouth, not come out of it. The bile tasted foul, and she tried unsuccessfully to spit the bitter taste into the grass.

“I’m sorry,” Tulip said ruefully, offering her an apologetic smile. “I didn’t realise you were having such a bad time of it.”

Luna harrumphed in between strings of drool. She knew full well Tulip had heard her trying not to retch. It would have been impossible to miss; their heads had been less than a foot apart.

“We needed to get away from that place,” Tulip continued.

“What place?” Luna demanded, finally able to speak again now that the world had stopped swaying so crazily. “It was just some mushrooms!” She had felt the wrongness of it herself, but she wanted Tulip to finally come out and say it. Seeing those fungi had given her a sudden sinking feeling she knew what Tulip had meant when she said ‘Brightlands’.

“The Brightlands,” Tulip half-whispered the confirmation, her ears pushed back in fear of the word. “But Luna — we can’t talk about it. Please just trust me when I say that if we see anything that looks like that, we want to be far away from there.”

Luna’s own ears tilted backwards. “Fine,” she snapped. “Keep the secret, if it’s so dangerous to even to say it!”

Tulip looked down and away, and Luna immediately regretted her harsh words. After all, Tulip had never pushed her to explain anything she couldn’t find the words for. She dragged herself upright and walked weakly over to Tulip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I understand.”

Tulip put a hoof gently on her head. “Thank you, little one.”

They embraced, and Luna let out a heavy sigh into the fur of Tulip’s chest. “I feel terrible.”

Tulip gave a surprised laugh. “I can see that!” A pause. “We need to keep moving—”

Luna groaned loudly, hiding her face under Tulip’s body.

“—but I can see you’re not up to walking!” Tulip finished hastily. “You can ride again — and I promise I’ll stick to a walk this time.”

---

“Tell me a little bit more about your sister,” Tulip said conversationally as she passed some foxgloves to Luna.

Luna, who still had her mouth full of the daisies she had been given a minute before, took the pale pink flowers eagerly and piled them neatly before herself. Mealtimes were her favourite time of the day. There were still so many new flavours to try, and if they were eating, it meant Tulip couldn’t expect them to keep walking. She said something in reply, but it was so indistinct through her mouthful of food that Tulip only laughed.

Luna grinned, showing a mouth full of crushed stems, and finally swallowed. “I said, what would you like to know?”

“Well…does she look like you, for a start? I’ve never seen anypony that looks like you.” Tulip’s phrasing was careful and delicate, and Luna felt that she was trying to hold back just how much of an oddity a pony with both wings and horn was.

She spread her wings and looked dubiously down at them, and then crossed her eyes to try to see her own horn.

“How old is she?” Tulip continued when Luna didn’t immediately respond. “Can you tell me her name? Anything that would give us a place to start. Someone in the village may have seen her.”

Luna looked up at once. “Village? I don’t know that word yet.”

Tulip blinked in surprise. “Don’t you? Haven’t I — have I not mentioned Hollow Tree yet?”

“I know what a hollow tree is, if that’s what you mean,” Luna frowned up at her.

“No, Hollow Tree is — well, its my home. It’s where we’re going.”

Luna sat back on her haunches to take this in. Somehow, strangely, the subject had never arisen. Tulip was always so focused on pressing onwards, but Luna had never thought to ask where they were going to. She had thought they were more going away from whatever it was that lay to the east. The Brightlands, as Tulip called them. All she had known was travelling; even the wolves had been as hyper-focused as Tulip was at pushing onwards, away from the east.

“So Hollow Tree is the name of your…village,” she said slowly, wrapping her head around the concept. “And a village is…what? A place to travel to? A place to stop travelling at?”

Tulip nodded, taking a bite of her own foxgloves. “Yes, exactly. A home is where you live, just one place. And the village is my home. Also home to a lot of other ponies. A whole tribe, in fact.”

Luna nodded. Tribes she was familiar with. Tulip had mentioned them before; large groups of ponies of a certain type — unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony — that spoke different languages. “So Hollow Tree is where you all live — you and your family?”

Tulip gave a sigh. “No; my family live a long way from Hollow Tree. I’m on my way home from visiting them.”

“Why aren’t you with them?” Luna pressed. “You said family were the ponies you are supposed to live with.”

“When you’re a foal, yes,” Tulip agreed. “But adult ponies sometimes move away. Most ponies stay with their tribe or village, but sometimes, like me, they move tribes.”

“Why did you move?”

Another sigh. “I was born in a unicorn tribe, a long way south of here. But I fell in love with a pegasus. My family and my tribe have…very strong feelings about that, so…I left. Now Cloudburst and I live with his tribe, in Hollow Tree.”

Luna reflected. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. They had covered ‘love’ before, of course. But to ‘fall’ in love sounded quite unpleasant — almost involuntary. Still, Tulip said Cloudburst’s name with such affection that she must have enjoyed it.

“I visit my family once a year now,” Tulip continued, staring sadly into the purple shadows. “But I keep Cloudburst and my real life a secret from them. They think I live alone in the woods. Lying makes me feel awful.”

Luna nodded sympathetically, staying silent. Tulip seemed as though she wanted to keep sharing.

“I don’t think I can go again,” Tulip went on, beginning to sound teary. “Its just getting so dangerous, and its such a long journey. But the thought of never seeing my parents again is…its so hard…” She tailed off, her eyes wet.

Luna stood up and walked across the small space between them. She reared onto her hind legs and wrapped her arms around as much of Tulip as she could reach.

Tulip sniffed and hugged her back. “Thank you.” She wiped her nose and stroked Luna’s mane with her other hoof. “Sorry. Right.” She looked at Luna’s little pile of uneaten foxgloves. “Finish your dinner, Luna.”

Luna lowered her head to do so. “Why don’t your parents like pegasi?” She asked carefully, curious enough to continue the subject, even though it was obviously a tender one.

Tulip briskly wiped her eyes. “Oh — well, the tribes have been at war for centuries. Just the usual, you know — fights over territory, resources, land. That sort of thing. But its getting worse all the time. Land is growing more scarce.”

She didn’t say it, but Luna heard that same caution in her tone that appeared whenever she spoke of the Brightlands.

“Anyway,” Tulip said, clearly wanting to change the subject. “Back to the topic at hoof — we were talking about your sister. Word of a pony like you will have spread fast, even between the different tribes. What does she look like? What’s her name?”

Luna considered. “I’m afraid I don’t know either of those things.” Tulip looked visibly confused, so Luna tried to explain a little further. “But don’t worry, I know I’ll recognise her when I see her.”

Or at least, she fervently hoped so. But would they know each other? With everypony walled off inside their own mind, how would their thoughts ever touch in order for them to be able to recognise each other? Words were all well and good, but that wasn’t how she and her sister communicated.

She shivered, feeling a new chill in the air. Like Tulip, she wanted to change the subject. “Tell me a bit more about the wars between the tribes, instead. Don’t they ever stop?”

Tulip shrugged, but answered. “Not really. Its the way things have always been. Like I say, the wars are just between neighbouring tribes. Every now and then some of them band together to fight someone else, but those alliances don’t last.”

Luna took another bite of her foxgloves. They tasted sweet and slightly sugary. A little like the honeysuckle they had come across a few days previously.

“And very, very rarely, there’ll be a Grand Gathering,” Tulip went on.

“Hmmpf?” Luna asked through her food.

“Its a gathering where lots of tribes come together to trade and intermingle,” Tulip said, suppressing a slightly watery smile at Luna’s appetite. “But there hasn’t been one in a long time. I was a filly no older than you when the most recent one took place.”

Luna swallowed enough to speak. “But I am much older than you.”

Tulip tried to laugh, choked on her own mouthful of flowers and had to thump her chest several times with a hoof before she could speak. “Ah, little one — you’re funny.” She reached over to ruffle Luna’s mane. Seeing that Luna’s face remained impassive, she bent down a little. “Look, Luna…you may be a bit…unusual,” she cast a dubious glance at Luna’s horn and wings, “But you’re still just a child. Don’t worry. I’ll bring you to Hollow Tree. The elders can help us figure out a plan to find your sister.”

Despite Tulip’s obvious disbelief, Luna nodded, hope flaring within her. Perhaps her sister had landed in the forest somewhere close to here, against the odds. Perhaps she would have found her way to Hollow Tree as well. Maybe she would even be there to greet them.

---

Their journey north continued. Luna pushed on with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. She was always keen to explore and learn with Tulip, but knowing that they were traveling to a place where ponies gathered thrilled her. Her sister would be a pony too, of that she was certain. They had chosen the form of the little creatures together. So this village of ponies was an ideal place to begin her search.

They were coming to the end of a day’s trek when Luna sensed something…funny. And not funny in a joke sort of way. Funny in a wrong sort of way. Wrong, in fact, like she hadn’t felt since those nasty mushrooms a few days ago.

She looked at Tulip, who was pacing along ahead, the same as always. She hadn’t sensed it yet.

“Tulip,” called Luna, and Tulip looked around.

“What is it?”

“I think the Brightlands are close again.”

The effect of that word was instantaneous. Tulip’s ears pinned themselves back and her head lowered in fear as she whirled and rushed back to Luna. “Don’t say that!” She put a leg around Luna and looked too and fro. After she had scanned the forest all around, she looked anxiously down at Luna. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” said Luna, slightly confused. “But I can feel it — can’t you?”

Tulip stared, her pupils dilating back out as her shock and fear passed. Finally, she gave a nervous laugh. “Luna — no. You can’t feel the Bri— that place. No one can feel it. You must just be imagining things.”

Luna shook her head. “I don’t think I am.”

Tulip bit her lip and looked fearfully around them. “Let’s keep moving, just in case. But no one can feel things like that. You must be wrong. You…you must.”

Luna nodded quickly, but she chewed the inside of her cheek nervously as they continued. She stuck close behind Tulip, who’s head swivelled constantly from side to side as she scanned the trees. They continued in tense silence for a few minutes, and just as Luna felt Tulip relax a fraction, a new pulse of wrongness flashed across her senses. She wrinkled her nose and turned to face their direction. “Tulip,” she hissed. “Over there!”

Tulip spun to where she pointed and lowered herself into a protective crouch in front of the foal, her eyes narrowed. Her horn flared into light, and the knife she used to prepare fruit floated out of her saddlebag. She held it low in front of them, clearly ready to strike. “How close is it?” she whispered tersely. “Too close to run?”

“I think so,” Luna answered uncertainly. “It feels very near.” It was making her feel a little ill again, the sour taste of bile in her throat stinging her eyes. A much stronger reaction than the mushrooms had caused.

A low snarl from the trees to their left, rumbling and resonant and so threatening Luna almost lost control of her bowels. Tulip and she lurched left as one to face the threat. A great shadow loomed between the trunks, and Tulip let out a low gulp of fear. She sparked her horn into brighter light, and the pink glow spread, illuminating the vast bulk of the hideous creature in front of them.

It was yellow and enormously, terrifyingly muscular, thick ropy veins bulging grotesquely out of its forearms. Greasy hair covered its neck, and its blunt muzzle was stuffed to bursting with rotting yellow-grey fangs. It clearly could not shut its mouth because of the overgrowth of teeth, and open wounds crisscrossed its face where its own fangs had cut the flesh.

Stubby bat wings twitched against its back, looking somehow underdeveloped compared to the rest of the beast. Soft skin compared to the scarred hide showing beneath the yellow fur, but with blood trickling from the wounds where the wings had burst from its back. Similarly, crusted blood had trickled down its forehead and pooled around its eyes from the razor-sharp horns that had clearly freshly grown. Its tail clicked strangely as it flicked from side to side, and Luna was horrified to see the tail from one of the sweet little scorpions Tulip had shown her last week bloated to monstrous proportions and attached to this…this monster.

The wrongness rolled off it in waves, and Luna had to lean over to retch onto the floor. Her whole being cried out against the existence of this thing, so unlike what she and her sister had intended.

She looked to Tulip to guidance, but the mare was utterly frozen. Tulip’s pupils had shrunk to mere pinpricks in the vast white of her eyes. The knife fell forgotten to the floor.

The creature lurched one painful step closer, and gave another growl that was more than half a moan of pain. Luna looked into its tiny, bloodshot eyes, and her heart ached for what this animal must have been before the Brightlands had corrupted it.

It stumbled another step closer, each of its wicked black claws twice as long as Luna’s stubby horn.

“Tulip,” Luna breathed, and then louder; “Tulip!”

A shudder ran over Tulip, and she took one shaky step backwards, tripped over Luna, and crumpled to the floor. She lay prostrate behind Luna, her gaze fixed on the monster, her shuddering breaths coming too fast.

Luna shook off Tulip’s foreleg and stepped forward to face the beast. It was up to her to protect Tulip, now.

The thing’s monstrosity beat against her senses, filling her blood with its sickening pulse. But she pushed back against it, one hoofstep after another, her eyes narrowed as she stared the thing down. It was corrupted, but it was beyond help. She must not pity it, she could not save it. She could only save Tulip.

Its piggy eyes narrowed in incomprehension as it looked down at her. Luna met its gaze without fear. Tulip had saved her from a fate of lonely wandering in the woods; now it was her turn.

“Get out,” she hissed, her voice so low it almost could not be heard. “Leave us alone.”

The creature appeared concerned. It took a shaky step forward, and then backed up until it hit a nearby tree. It looked into Luna’s eyes again and she wished she could make her horn flash with light like Tulip could.

“Get out!” she insisted, and pushed back against the wrongness she felt.

It was just a little push, but it was enough to knock the unsteady monster off its paws. It gave a rumble of distress, but Luna pushed harder against where she was sure its mind must be, if she could only get past the barriers of her own.

The monster shook its head, snarling horribly, and then blundered away into the woods. Luna did not relax or cease her pushing until the little pulses of wrong had faded completely from her sphere of consciousness. Well — not entirely. There was something left. She trotted towards the source, and there against the purple-brown bark of the tree the animal had fallen against she saw flecks of pink and yellow. Even as she watched they throbbed and grew, spreading into each other, changing the tree bit by bit into something awful. Luna had seen all she needed to. She turned and ran back to Tulip, who was still staring vacantly at the direction the monster had fled.

Luna shook her hard; or as hard as one of her size could. “Tulip, Tulip! Get up! We’ve got to run!”

At last, she seemed to penetrate Tulip’s stupor, and the mare shakily got to her hooves. “…Luna? What happened? Where did it go?”

“That way,” Luna showed the direction with a flick of her tail. “We have to go, Tulip, really. The Brightlands are infecting this place. It’ll get us if we stay.”

Tulip gave a brief jerk of her head that Luna supposed was an attempt at a nod. “Yes, yes, of course. Lets go — get on.”

Luna scaled Tulip’s back once more, and the unicorn set off in a shaky canter, nearly falling as she went but just managing to keep her footing.